


Coming Home

by ohmyfae



Series: Imperial!Noct AU [2]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: AU, Gen, emotional/psychological abuse recovery, some endgame spoilers, some violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-12
Updated: 2017-01-17
Packaged: 2018-09-16 22:40:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 21,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9292685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohmyfae/pseuds/ohmyfae
Summary: Through an unusual circumstance, Noct was kidnapped at an early age and raised by Ardyn Izunia in Niflheim. Now, back in his childhood home in Insomnia, Noct struggles between his residual hatred of Lucis and his desire to belong, while the threat of Ardyn's retribution looms in the background.A sequel toFatherSome endgame and Kingsglaive spoilers!





	1. Familiar Faces

**Author's Note:**

> Ok, so it isn't over after all! My wife encouraged me to write more about Imperial!Noct and the Chocobros, and then it became A Thing. Who is surprised? No one.  
> There are quite a few references to the Father fic, as this is a direct follow-up to the events in that story.  
> 

It was an unseasonably cold day in the sloping hills of Cleigne, and the son of the chancellor of Niflheim shivered in the damp salt air. He was a slight young man of eighteen, with long, black hair, fine cheekbones, and too-bright eyes. He had a swordsman’s body—all wiry muscle and strong legs, and he wore a loose black tunic and trousers that draped him like silk. He could have been beautiful, even with the scars that flashed at his arms and curved beneath his eye, but his expression was twisted in a dark grimace and his hands were slick with blood. 

“Shit,” he said, softly. He crouched down to wipe his fingers on the shirtfront of the man at his feet. The man was also in black—a uniform of the Lucian Kingsglaive, expensive cloth ripped ragged at the chest and side. His eyes were wide in death, bloodshot and bulging, and closed stiffly at his killer’s touch.

“Noctis,” called a smooth, sing-song voice from down the hill. “What _have_ you done to your father’s sword?”

Noct lifted his hand from the dead Glaive’s face and looked down. Ardyn Izunia, his father, was leaning against the door of his hideous sportscar, peering into the sun at Noct’s back. At Noct’s side, the pieces of a jagged-edged blade tilted precariously on the lip of a mossy stone. Noct pulled it to safety, and tried to will his expression into stillness. 

“It gave out,” he said, and winced at the way his voice cracked. “The Glaive had a mace.”

“Oh, Noct.” His father stalked up the hill, taking care to step over earthy patches made damp by the midmorning dew. “It’s only a sword, in the end.”

“I know that.” Noct said it sharper than he meant to, and turned aside. It had been his first sword, given to him on his twelfth birthday, and one of the few possessions he truly cherished. It hurt more than he cared to admit to see it scattered in the dirt, broken beyond repair.

“Perhaps it is a blessing,” his father said, stepping onto the rock where Noctis was crouching on his heels. “You have long since outgrown that sword. It’s time you used that stolen armiger of yours in earnest.”

Noct ground his teeth, not trusting himself to speak. He and his father had been raiding tombs for years now, claiming ancient weapons that rightly belonged to the King of Lucis—the man with the coward’s heart who hid behind walls and barriers in distant Insomnia. Perhaps the ancient kings and queens to whom the weapons originally belonged knew that their arms were in the hands of someone unworthy. Perhaps this was more of the Lucian line’s twisted magic at work. Whatever the case, using the weapons, however right it felt in the moment, always came with a price. The exhaustion that bit into Noct’s bones every time he fought with them was so strong that he rarely used them at all. Clearly, his father had noticed this.

“I know it’s hard,” Ardyn said. A warm hand rested on Noct’s shoulder, and he turned to see his father kneeling on the ground behind him. “I can teach you how to bear it a little easier.”

Noct tried not to look at the sword at his feet. “I don’t want to burden you with my own weakness,” he said, at last.

“Why Noctis,” Ardyn said, placing a hand on Noct’s cheek. “You are my _boy._ ” Noct sighed, and felt the brush of lips as his father kissed the crown of his head. “I would put out the _stars_ for you.”

\---

“Rise and shine, sleeping beauty.”

Noct woke with a jerk, blinking hard at the light that streamed through the upper window of his room in Insomnia’s Citadel. At some point in the night, he’d rolled himself onto the floor, and he was tangled in a sheet that was half hooked to the edge of the too-soft bed. 

Gladiolus, the man who had woken him, stood at the door with his arms crossed. Noct scowled. He couldn’t help tensing up whenever Gladio was around—Even though it had been several years since they’d first met, it was hard to shake the memory of this massive, grim-faced man bearing down on him in a rush of wind and steel. It hovered behind his level eyes and impassive expression, a promise of what would happen should Noct decide to run.

Not that Noct had anywhere _to_ run, these days.

“Gods,” Noct said. “I never oversleep. What time is it?”

“Close to eight.” Gladio raised his eyebrows. “We’re making the announcement this afternoon. Iggy’s on the way up to brief you.”

_“Iggy?”_

“Ignis. You remember.”

Noct disentangled himself from his blanket and stood. “Not likely to forget. And you two are what, going to drag me kicking and screaming to the audience hall?”

“Only if you’re a brat about it,” Gladio said. Noct cast him a scathing look and made his way to the bathroom. 

Damn. He scrubbed his hand over his face with a dejected sigh. It had been two weeks since he'd unwittingly entered the palace, and going so long without shaving made him look like he’d aged ten years. His face was starting to look _too_ much like the King’s, making it harder and harder for Noct to look into the mirror and see anyone other than a familiar stranger with another name. Noctis Lucis Caelum. Whoever that was. 

“You know,” he called, through the open door. “It would be nice if you could let me use a razor.”

“Not likely,” was the gruff reply. “You know the rules.”

“I also know that I can summon at least twelve very sharp, very deadly weapons at any second. And yet here we are.”

Gladio walked over, stopping to lean against the bathroom doorframe. “Look,” he said. “If you can shave with your ancestor’s magical greataxe, I will _personally_ buy you the best shaving razor in Insomnia.”

“That a challenge?”

Gladio laughed. Noct narrowed his eyes at the man, uncertain, and looked away. After a moment, the young man sighed and made an expansive gesture that flickered in the mirror.

“Come on,” he said. “Sit down, and I’ll shave you.”

Noct balked. “I don’t need you to—“

“I know,” Gladio said, with a finality that assured Noct that he did, in fact, understand. “But you know my dad. He’ll kill me if I let you so much as nick your chin.”

“Yes,” Noct said. “What good would it do for me to die before he can wring the secrets of Niflheim out of me?”

Gladio didn’t take the bait, only gestured to the toilet seat. Noct sighed in resignation and sat down, watching the young Crownsguard soldier run a handcloth under the tap. When Gladio had all his supplies ready, he sat down on the rim of the bathtub and gripped Noct by the chin. Noct almost jerked back. It felt strange, having someone else touch him like this, and he tried not to look at the other man as he set to work.

“Ignis would probably be better at this than me,” Gladio said, using the tub faucet to lather his hands. “But believe it or not, he doesn’t _always_ have knives handy.” He flashed a pocket razor between his fingers, then ran it slowly through the lather at Noct’s jaw. “When we were kids, you used to tease me about my beard. It started growing in when you were pretty young, I think. We’d be training in the yard, and you’d make fun of the way it came out in patches. Picture of noble tact, right?”

Noct gave him a steady look, not wanting to talk and disrupt the blade. Gladio interpreted his glare correctly and huffed.

“Yeah, yeah. You’re hardly noble now, either. I know.” He motioned for Noct to turn his head, and started on the other cheek. “Okay. I know how it is. I’m not gonna argue that we didn’t… meet… on the best of terms. But I’m still your shield. It’s my job to protect you.”

“Oh,” Noct said, unable to contain himself. “And the time you, what was it, tried to _beat me down_ to get me _home,_ that was protecting me?”

The look Gladio gave Noct now was so twisted with emotion, thick with sadness and an unfathomable pain, that Noct felt the vitriol drain out of him. 

“Yeah,” he said. “If it got you away from the Niffs.”

“I didn’t _need_ to get away,” Noct said, unthinking. Gladio raised his eyebrows. 

“Really?”

Noct looked aside. He knew what Gladio meant. Noct had made his choice, for better or worse, on the night Ardyn had come to bring him home. Ardyn, who Noct still _loved_ in his strange, fierce way, even though he knew he had only used him as a pawn against the King. 

What Noct couldn’t tell Gladio was that _getting away_ had done more than just take him out of Niflheim’s grasp. It had changed Noct somehow. It was _still_ changing him. It would be easier to go back to not knowing who he was, to believing that he was only Noctis, son of the chancellor, enemy to the Kings of Lucis. Now, he was somewhere between the boy he was before and the man he’d become, and he could feel himself turning into something new and unrecognizable. 

“There.” Gladio drew a damp washcloth from Noct’s face. “You almost look human.”

Noct rose and turned to the mirror. “Not bad,” he said, after a moment. “If you want to give up terrorizing strangers in the wilderness, you might make a living as a barber.”

Gladio laughed, and Noct felt his own lips twitch in the faintest smile.


	2. An Announcement

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lucis announces the return of their prince. Noct isn't entirely sure who that prince is supposed to be.

“Alright, you ingrates.” The bartender of Garula’s Fancy, the least known dive bar in Lestallum’s history, rapped her knuckles on the top of the bar counter. Voices died out throughout the room as the locals looked up from their drinks. “You heard the radio this morning, right?”

“Dear me, no,” came a voice from the far end of the bar. The bartender glanced that way, barely hiding a scowl. The man there wasn’t one of her regulars, and everything from his conditioned hair to his fancy getup reeked of money. The bartender seemed to take his presence as a personal affront, and dealt with the insult by pointedly ignoring him.

“Thing is, kiddos,” she said, “Rumor has it that the late Prince of Lucis, Six rest his sugar-coated soul, ain’t as late as we thought. So Holly here,” she jerked a thumb at a figure in the corner, standing under an ancient television, “is gonna make it so that we can see the _official_ announcement, live, in full color. Which means none of y’all, and I mean none, are gonna raise a fuss until _after_ it’s over.”

“Aw, Ada,” said a man in one of the booths. “Never took you for a royalist.”

“Shut up, Greg. Holly, you got the wires right this time?”

From under the television, a woman in the jumpsuit of the Lestallum power plant gave an affirmative grunt and twisted her hand. The screen popped, and a grainy picture wavered into view. The bar erupted into cheers, and the bartender slammed her hand on the counter. The man at the end of the bar quickly lifted his glass before it could spill on his expensive clothes.

“What I say about noise?” the bartender called. 

“I ever tell you that you’re the sweetest, gentlest girl in Lestallum, Ada?” Holly’s voice was muffled by the gutted television.

“Don’t give me sass, sweetheart.” The bartender fiddled with her remote, and the picture brightened, showing the crowded streets of Insomnia. 

Everyone in the bar shifted close.

“—Recovered at the start of the month, Prince Noctis is making his first appearance after over eleven years as a political prisoner of the Niflheim empire.” The reporter’s voice-over was remarkably calm, but the crowd in the street had the look of a year-end festival. People kept jumping in front of the camera, and the cameraman had to zoom in close to get a clear shot of the balcony where King Regis and the rescued prince were standing.

It was hard to get a read on the prince’s face on camera. He stood a little behind the King, and his hair kept blowing in his eyes. He shifted uncomfortably in a light black suit that looked like it didn’t quite fit his shoulders, and when he raised a tentative hand to the crowd, the swell of their voices made him take half a step back. 

“Always so shy,” said the man at the bar. The bartender flapped a hand at him, still focused on the screen.

The young prince Noctis looked down at the glass prompter at the base of the balcony and cleared his throat. His voice echoed across the square, which made him startle again, and the King reached out to place a steadying hand on his shoulder. 

“People of Lucis,” Noctis said, in a clear voice. “It has been…” He stared at the prompter for a moment, and looked up. A disquieting silence stretched over the crowd. When he spoke again, his voice was rougher, unguarded. “Years,” he said. “I’m not sure if…” Another silence. The crowd began to murmur—loose shouts could be heard, along with a smattering of applause. The prince raised a hand to his hair, lowered it. “I’m sorry. Thank you for your welcome. I’ll… I’ll try to deserve it. Thank you.” He backed away from the King’s touch, bowed lightly, and turned on his heel. Applause rose in scattered bursts, and the King took over the microphone as the prince beat a hasty retreat into the Citadel.

“That was odd,” said the bartender, turning down the volume.

“Poor thing,” said a woman at the bar. “They found him, what, a week ago? Two? What was the date they said, Holly?”

“Damned if I know,” said Holly, still stuck behind the television. “The kid’s shellshocked. Give him time.”

The bartender sighed. “How much time does he have? The king ain’t getting any younger.”

The bar descended into silence at that, punctured only by the sound of the man at the counter setting down his glass. The bartender turned to him, and he lifted the brim of his hat to catch her eye.

“I’m afraid you are all slightly off the mark,” he said. “The prince doesn’t need _time_ to come into his own.” He slipped a few gil under his glass as payment. The smile he flashed the room was warm, and his eyes were so dark in the shadow of his hat that they could almost be black. “He simply needs _incentive._ ” 

 

\---

 

Noct fell back against the wall in the empty receiving room and pressed both hands to his face. 

“I hate this,” he said. He was breathing in silent, uneven gasps, and his heartbeat was pounding painfully behind his eyes. All those people, surging against the buildings like a tide, watching him, weren’t really _there_ for him—they were there for a prince. They were weaving a new story, shaping him into the image of the man they wanted to see in their minds. He could feel the threads of their expectation wrapping round him as he stood on the balcony, choking him, twisting him into someone he didn’t know.

“Remember what I said about breathing,” said a voice at his side. Noct lowered his hands and looked over at Nyx, one of the Kingsglaive soldiers assigned to watch him. The older man raised his eyebrows and jerked his head to the balcony. “How’d it go?”

“Weren’t you listening?” Noct asked. The Glaive tapped his earpiece and gestured to the door, where he’d been set on watch. “Well, that’s a relief.”

“Ouch.” Noct gave him a weary look, and Nyx smiled. “So. Was it messed-up-a-line bad, or the-way-you-warp bad?”

“I warp fine,” Noct said, hitting his shoulder with the back of a hand. Nyx rolled his eyes. 

“For a rag doll.” He glanced up, and straightened to attention. “Look sharp, kid.”

Noct turned to see Regis and his retinue trail through the balcony doors. Nyx stepped back to a respectful distance, giving a stunning impression of a marble statue, and Noct braced himself as King Regis strode towards them. 

“I’m sorry,” he said, before Regis could speak. 

“No need.” His father’s voice was low. “If anything, they’ll like you better for it. I apologize for putting you in that position, but the kingdom needed convincing.”

“Have to learn somehow, I guess.” 

“Yes, but trial by fire isn’t always the best way.” Regis placed a hand on Noct’s shoulder, close to his neck, and Noct jerked back involuntarily. “My apologies.”

“Your Majesty.” Clarus, the King’s Shield, appeared at the King’s side like a ghost. He gave Noct a wary look, and Noct smiled sweetly. It was almost a relief to see Clarus: No need to navigate social graces when sheer animosity would do just as well. “Drautos says the Empire breached the wall in…” He paused. “If we can discuss this elsewhere, Your Majesty.”

“Oh!” Noct pressed a hand to his chest, looking about him with mock concern. “Is it… is it _me_ you’re avoiding? Well, I have no choice, do I? I’ll just…” he patted the suit of his pants, “get on the phone I don’t have, and call up the Emperor I barely know, and tell him _everything._ ”

“Noctis,” the King said, in a warning tone.

“Quite,” said Clarus. He leaned down to whisper in the King’s ear. When he drew back, the King looked troubled. “Drautos says he’ll need every available Glaive for this one. They picked a hell of a time to strike.”

The King grimaced. “They knew we’d be distracted. Very well. Give Drautos my approval.” 

Clarus turned to Nyx. “You are no doubt aware that you will be reassigned,” he said. “Report to the captain for your orders.”

“Sir.” Nyx bowed to the King and turned to go.

Noct lunged forward, gripping the Glaive by the arm. Nyx paused, and both Clarus and the King looked at the prince with unmasked surprise. 

“Don’t die,” Noct said, impulsively. Nyx grinned.

“Dying’s not part of the plan, kid,” he said. Belatedly, he flicked his gaze to his monarch and added, “Your highness.” 

Noct let him go, and tried not to stare at his retreating back. Ardyn had always seemed so untouchable—even on the rare instance when he was injured, he would jump back as though nothing had happened. There was never any reason to be afraid for him. But now there was Nyx, wearing a uniform that Noct had only ever seen on dead men, and Regis, old before his time. There were even flashes of this new, strange fear in Gladio, for all that the man was a terror on legs. Soon, Noct would be as weak as he’d been before, back when he’d let that daemon savage him. 

It had been much easier in Niflheim.

“Your highness?”

Noct started, and looked into the eyes of Ignis, Gladio’s partner in crime, who was wearing a truly horrible leopard-print shirt under his formal jacket. Clarus had successfully managed to pull the King away to a corner, where the two of them spoke in hushed voices, leaving Noct in a rare bubble of empty space. Ignis stepped into it, his smile unsure.

Noct didn’t respond, and Ignis sighed.

“The press will be here to speak to His Majesty in a few minutes,” Ignis said. “I thought you might want to get away before they arrive…?”

“Yes, actually.” Noct couldn’t keep the relief from his voice, and the man before him smiled in earnest. 

“Excellent. If you would follow me?”

Noct walked at Ignis’ heels through the palace halls, trying to note markers and milestones along the way. Finally, he started to recognize his surroundings, and sped up, leading the way to his rooms. Except—

“Not that way.” Noct stopped, turning at Ignis’ voice. The man was flushed a deep pink, and he was adjusting his glasses as though uncertain what to do with his hands. 

“I’m pretty sure I know where my rooms are,” Noct began.

“I was thinking,” Ignis said, looking anywhere but at Noctis, “That we get a little… further… away than all that. With your permission, your highness.”

“I’m not your h—“

“Please.” Noct found his objections dying in his throat at the man’s next words. “For old time’s sake.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \---
> 
>  
> 
> What is Ignis planning? What is _Ardyn_ planning? Who knows! Find out on the next installment of: Imperial!Noctis Deals With His Emotions!
> 
> Just imagine that every time Clarus and Noct look at each other, the Kill Bill sirens start playing.


	3. Color in Your Cheeks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ignis tries to help Noct live a little.

“I want to go _home._ ”

Noct hadn’t meant to say it. The words had slipped out of him as he and his father walked the long, curved hallways of the Imperial garrison, passing rows and rows of MT containment units on their way to the Emperor’s receiving room. At first, Noct thought that he’d been walking too far behind for Ardyn to notice, but his heart sank when his father’s fashionable boots clicked to a halt.

“It’s a short visit, Noctis,” his father said, in his smooth, official voice. “We’ll be back home before you know it.”

“Not that home,” Noct said, thinking of the cold, featureless fortress where he and his father had lived in the past few years since Noct’s recovery. He knew he should let it drop, knew that his father wasn’t fond of having his schedule interrupted, but there was a tight knot in his chest that couldn’t seem to go away. “The home we had before.”

His father turned on his heel. “Noctis,” he said. “There was no other home.”

“But there was.” Noct knew he was in for it now, but he couldn’t stop. “I remember. There was, there was a garden, and a girl, and my room was enormous, and—“

“That’s a very fine imagination you have,” his father said, “but you are mistaken.” He stepped forward and placed a hand on the side of Noct’s head. Noct leaned into the touch, so rare these days. “Perhaps you dreamed it while you were sleeping. You can tell me more about it after we have met the Emperor.”

He turned back to the distant corridor, leaving Noct to trot at his heels in dejected silence. Maybe it _had_ been a dream. Maybe none of it was real—the little girl crying in the garden, the boy with the sword, the distant call of “Not _again,_ Noctis,” as he grabbed the hand of a bespectacled kid and ran down endless stone halls. It was too disjointed. It had none of the routine of Noct’s life with Ardyn at the fortress. 

Noct stared at the wide expanse of his father’s back. If Ardyn said that there had been no other home before, then it had to be true. Still, it was such a nice dream. Noct tried to hold onto it as they walked, trying to catch details, sounds, anything, but it was already starting to slip away. By the time they made it to the Emperor, he could barely remember a thing. Which was just as well: It didn’t do any good to feel homesick for a place that never existed.

\---

“So what I’m getting here,” Noct said, as he and Ignis stalked through the empty residential wing of the palace, “is that you want to kill me.”

Ignis cast Noct a glance over his shoulder. “Of course not.”

The look Noct gave him in return could have melted steel. 

The two young men were pressed to the shadows in the abandoned hall, looking about as innocent as most of the Kingsglaive, at least, expected Noct to be. Ignis had eschewed his formal jacket, and Noct was wearing one of Ignis’ cast-off white button-downs, complete with suspenders that made him look, as Noct was quick to point out, like a pageboy dressing up as a sixty-year-old man.

“Good,” Ignis had said, nonplussed. “No one will recognize you.”

He’d also insisted that Noct tie up his hair, which made Noct feel paranoid and jittery. He only ever tied his hair back in training, and could already taste the metallic bite of adrenaline on his tongue. His hands instinctively clenched, aching for a sword hilt he didn’t need.

“You know how this plan of yours is going to end?” Noct asked. Ignis sighed loudly. “We’re going to get three feet out of the Citadel, the Crownsguard is going to catch me, Clarus Amicitia will _personally_ behead me with his _bare hands,_ and my head will be mounted on a spike in his office as a warning to others.”

“Fairly sure the King would object to that last part,” Ignis said.

“The beheading, or the spike?”

“The spike, certainly. It would clash with the décor.” Ignis turned. “Stop there, please.”

Noct stilled.

“There.” The older man crossed his arms. “That’s why we’re doing this.”

“What’s why?” Noct glanced around. The hall was still empty. 

“You were never so obedient before.” Noct tensed, opened his mouth to object, and Ignis silenced him. “Oh, you tried to escape, certainly. But I’ve seen you, your highness.”

“ _Noct._ ”

“You followed orders when you were directed to a physician. When you were relocated to another room, when you were told not to enter the Council hall. You go where you’re told, you, you _slow down_ so that you’re always a few feet behind…” Ignis’ face had gone a mottled pink again. “What _happened_ to you, Noctis?”

There was a heavy silence.

“What do you think,” Noct said, in a slow, even voice, “would have happened if I said no?”

“Are you talking about Insomnia,” Ignis said, “or Niflheim?” When Noct just stared at him, Ignis lifted his glasses to pinch the bridge of his nose. “When we were young, you were always dragging me out of the palace. You couldn’t stay in one place for more than a week. I thought, since tonight is the only night you’re not liable to be closely watched, you might _like--_ ”

“So this is about you,” Noct said. Ignis was well and truly flustered now.

“Yes and no. Do you _want_ to see the city, Noctis? Gladio can only cover for us until the change of the watch, so we’ll have to—“

“That’s twice you forgot to call me _your highness,_ ” Noct said. Ignis stared at him, open-mouthed, and Noct raised his shoulders in a helpless shrug. “Sure. Let’s go. It’s a good day to die.”

\---

The festive atmosphere of the city had yet to die down when Ignis and Noct emerged through the back exit of the Citadel gardens. Noct shied away from the largest crowds, but Ignis noticed that he was peering into them, stopping every now and then to double back.

“Are you looking for something?” Ignis asked, after a while. “Is this familiar?”

“Sort of,” Noct said. “I thought, maybe…oh.” He looked up. Overhead, a large screen projected a picture of a young boy’s face, framed by scrolling news feeds. Noct's face, staring blankly over the crowded streets of Insomnia. “That takes me back.”

“To when you were young?”

“When I, uh.” Noct looked a little uncertain. “Lived with Ardyn.” He tugged at the tie at the back of his head, and glanced around. Ignis nearly had to race after him when he spotted a stairway leading down below the street. “Is this a sewer? There are lights down here.”

“It’s one of the refugee districts,” Ignis said, looking into the lights below. Noct gave him a baffled look.

“Why do they live below the street?” he asked. “I know I saw empty houses on my way…” His face twisted in a scowl. “Of course.”

Ignis placed a hand on his arm. “Maybe we should get something to eat. There’s a diner down by the—“

“No, I want to go here,” Noct said, shaking him off. He clambered down a few steps before turning his face up to his bewildered guide. “What? Shouldn’t you be _happy_ to hear me say no?”

“Don’t twist my words,” Ignis said, but he followed him all the same. 

The air underground was warm, and lights had been strung up between the roofs of propped-up food stalls around an open-air patio. There were people there already, but the crowd was much thinner than it was on the street above, and Noct sat at the end of one of the tables with all the confidence of someone who belonged there. Ignis bit back a sigh and gestured to a shack selling drinks, and Noct shook his head.

“Hey.” Noct turned, and saw a man staring at him on the other side of the table. “Haven’t seen you around before.”

“I wouldn’t think so.” Noct spoke in a smooth tone, strangely unlike the sharp, ground-in way in which he addressed Ignis or Gladio. “I’m new to the city. Still finding my feet, I guess.”

“Really?” One of the other men leaned forward. “How’d you manage that? You in the Kingsglaive?”

Noct let out a harsh laugh. “They’d eat me alive.”

The air in the patio seemed to shift, and as he made his way to Noct’s side with a drink, Ignis saw the faces of the people around them slacken. They’d been tense before, he realized, but in a way that only Noct had noticed. It bothered Ignis a little, because he’d always prided himself on his attention to detail.

“Sit with us,” a woman said, waving Noct over. Ignis and Noct both noted that she didn’t extend this offer to his companion. “We’re drinking to the prince, poor bastard.”

“Speak for yourself,” said a man. “I’m drinkin’ ‘cause it’s half-off.”

Ignis gave Noct a wary look, but Noct scooted down the bench, a little closer to the other patrons. One of them moved to clap a hand on his shoulder, caught the way he flinched back, and hit the table next to him instead. 

“You much of a drinker?” Noct shook his head with a faint, bemused smile. “Let me order for you. The drinks they put on the official menu are piss—only Insomnians can handle them.”

Noct looked over at Ignis, who was already holding a glass. Ignis raised one eyebrow and pressed his lips in a thin line.

“Hey, Oline,” one of the women next to Noctis said, when a waitress came by to take their orders. “You have a twin.” She tapped her left cheek, and the waitress looked down at Noct with a little trepidation. Noct lifted a hand to his own cheek, feeling the thick, raised scar under his eye, and saw that Oline had swept her bangs over her face for a reason.

“That looks like MT work,” Noct said, noting the way the scars on her cheek ran jagged past her hair.

“It was,” she said. 

“And you made it out alive? _I’m_ impressed.” Noct risked a smile. “You should show it off more often.”

The woman let out an incredulous laugh and smacked Noct on the arm, which made him jump. Ignis glanced at Noct, and the prince mouthed, _Don’t say a word._ Ignis simply took a sip of his drink and looked away, hiding a smile.

“Know a little about MT’s, huh?” asked one of the men at the table. Noct shrugged, drawing both legs up on the bench. 

“Fought enough of them,” he said. 

“You look Lucian,” said another, a man with thick braids that ran down the length of his back. “When’d you get the chance to do that?”

“Grew up out West. Doesn’t make for the best conversation.”

“Gen, don’t harass the boy,” Oline said to the braided man. She mussed Noct’s hair as she passed him, and he looked at her in open outrage. His companions at the table burst into laughter and urged him to sit closer. He shifted until he was caught up in the midst of them, and they crowded in, enveloping him in a bubble of chatter. Ignis, watching from the other end of the table, was surprised to find that the hard lines at the edge of Noct’s eyes and mouth were starting to soften, his shoulders straightening from their defensive slouch. 

At one point, someone produced a guitar, and someone else fished a recorder out of who knows where, and half the crowd groaned as the other half clapped along with a familiar song from the provinces. Noct adamantly refused to dance, and walked back to sit with Ignis while the food court patrons pulled back chairs and tables for a better space. 

“This happen often in the city?” he asked. 

“I honestly can’t say,” said Ignis. “I’ve never been to this district before.”

Noct gave him an arch look. “Thought you were supposed to be the king’s advisor.”

“I can’t very well go to every district in the city, y—Noct.”

The grin Noct gave Ignis was as open as it had been when they were children. “Well,” he said. “We’ll just have to fix that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So a fun thing about my time as a gay teen waiting to escape an abusive parent (lol guess who is drawing on her own experiences for this fic) was that I lived a sort of double life. School and being very, very quiet during the day, then sneaking out to go to gay bars I was too young to frequent at night. And when I was there, I’d inevitably be drawn in to groups of total strangers who were very different from me in most ways, but saw something in me that rang familiar in their own pasts. They’d take me in like family for a few hours, and then I’d never see them again. It made it feel like getting out and growing up was possible.
> 
> Lmao oversharing time! Everything’s fine now, but yeah. That feeling is what I wanted to draw on in this chapter I guess???
> 
> (And yes, the title of this chapter is from a Mountain Goats song, yes, I am emotional garbage, ha ha ha)


	4. A Solid Defense

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Noct lowers his guard.

“How old are you, Noct?” Ardyn asked one morning. Noctis had been reading through an atlas on the floor of the office while his father filed through reports, and looked up now with faint bewilderment.

“Thirteen,” he said. “My birthday was two months ago.”

“Of course,” his father said. “You’re practically a man.” Noct grinned at this. “Which is why, dear Noctis, it confuses me so that you hide from every MT you see in the hall.”

Noct opened his mouth to protest, then shut it again. His father hated unnecessary noise. 

“I admit,” his father said, closing his folder with a snap, "that I would be a failure as a father if I did not teach my son how to defend himself. But how can you learn, Noctis, if you are too afraid to try?" 

"I'm not _afraid,_ " Noct said hotly, swallowing the lie. His father smiled down at him benevolently.

“Good. Up we go, son.” Noct rose. “Give me your hands.” Noct obeyed, unthinking, and shivered when Ardyn unlatched the security clearance bracelet from his wrist: The one thing that alerted the late night patrols that he was not an enemy. A cold spike of fear buried itself in the base of his spine. His father set the bracelet to the side, then placed a small disk drive into Noct’s front pocket.

“Deliver that to Doctor Julius in the infirmary,” he said. “I’m sure he’ll be able to patch you up in no time.” 

Noct closed his eyes. His wrist felt too bare, his hands too empty. “Can I use my sword?” he asked. He knew his voice was shaking, and he hated himself for it.

“Of course,” said his father. “Don’t be that way, Noctis: This is a lesson, not a punishment.” He gently turned Noct around by one shoulder and shooed him to the door.

Noct slipped out into the hall, sword in hand, and stared into the dark. Three corridors to the infirmary. That made eight MagiTech patrols. He clenched his fingers round his sword hilt so tight his knuckles creaked, and tried to remember how to breathe.

An hour later, Doctor Julius tutted as he rattled about his workstation.

“You give me extra work I don’t need, little shadow,” he said, picking out a vial from his supply cabinet. Noct, lying on a spare cot with a hand to his cheek, tried not to roll his eyes. Doctor Julius was always complaining, but no one else had ever been in his clinic when Noct was there. 

“Sorry, Doctor,” Noct said, in a tired voice. 

“Yes, well. I’d tell you not to do something so reckless again,” Julius said, lifting Noct’s hand to brush the gash under his eye with the contents of the vial, “But you are your father’s boy, I suppose.” 

Noct thought of the fractured, half-broken MT units scattered down the long hallways leading to his father’s office, and smiled. “I guess so.”

\---

It had been three days now, and the Kingsglaive had yet to return. 

“They’re usually out for a week at least,” Gladio told Noct, when Noct finally broke down and asked. “And Captain Drautos keeps them training the rest of the time. It’s rare to see any of them in this part of the palace. Only reason they _were_ here was, well…” He gave Noct an uneasy look.

“Let me guess.” Noct slipped into sarcasm like the arms of an old friend. “To prevent me from slaying the King in his sleep?”

“Don’t let my dad hear you say that,” Gladio warned.

They were walking out in the soft grass of the Crownsguard training grounds, practice swords in hand, for what was probably the most heavily contested bout of exercise Noct had ever asked for. Clarus had refused to consider letting Noct get his hands on _any_ weapon, Regis had been doubtful of the purpose it would serve, and Gladio had been too far on the fence either way to speak up. In the end, it had taken a surprisingly fervent speech from Ignis and two straight days worth of promises to behave for either of them to concede.

Gladio indicated where they were to stand, and suggested they start with a simple parry and riposte.

 _Simple,_ Noct found, meant something much different to Gladio than it did the rest of the world.

The first blow nearly dropped him to his knees. Noct managed to parry, barely, and used his superior speed to strike out at Gladio’s unprotected side—but no, of course Gladio had prepared for that, and sent Noct flying with a heave of his blade.

Noct braced himself as he was thrown back, and dragged his sword through the turf to slow his descent. He landed in a half-crouch, and Gladio pulled a face.

“What?”

“That’s what bothered me before,” Gladio said. He walked around Noct, and nudged his shin with a foot to make him adjust his stance. “Your defense is sloppy. You’re quick, sure, but if you don’t know how to take a blow—“

Noct scoffed. “Pretty sure I know,” he said. Gladio’s frown deepened.

“No, you don’t,” he said. “You know how to get hurt.”

“And you’re good at hurting. It’s like we’re meant for each other.”

Gladio rolled his eyes and cuffed him lightly on the back of the head. “You work with me,” he said, “and I promise you’ll be able to defend yourself without losing your footing.”

Noct straightened, tapping dirt from the soles of his boots. “ _You_ sound confident,” he said. Gladio smirked.

“Yeah, I’m good like that.”

They stood there a moment, enjoying the almost companionable silence of the empty training grounds, when Noct startled at a rustle in the bushes framing the garden behind them. He whipped around, fingers clenching, and stared in dumfounded shock at the figure struggling to climb over the fence. 

“Gladdy!”

“Iris?” Noct and Gladio said, together. Now it was Gladio’s turn to stare at _Noct._ Noct could just see him out of the corner of his eye, eyes narrowed, mouth open, brows knit in a suspicious line.

The figure at the fence dropped over it, tangling the hem of her black and mauve dress. She tugged it free and ran down the grassy lawn towards them.

She was a teenager, with short hair and a bounce to her step despite her heavy, practical boots, but there was something about her face that was so strikingly familiar that Noct almost had to laugh. He leaned back on his heels and raised a hand to the back of his neck.

“Earth to Gladio,” she said, when she landed with a jump a few feet away. She turned to Noct and waved. “Hi. Are you one of Gladdy’s friends? I’m—“

“Iris,” Noct said. “I remember.”

Gladio gaped.

“You…” Iris squinted at him, and raised her hands to her mouth. “Prince _Noctis?_ But Gladdy says you don’t remember _anything._ ”

“I remember _you,_ ” he said. For once, something in the palace made sense. “I found you in a… a park? A garden? And you stole Gladio’s lunch once, when we were training, and he said—“

“He’d throw me down the well!” Iris squeaked. 

Noct shook his head. “How are you still so small?”

“Hey!” Iris cried. “Speak for yourself. What’d you do with your _hair_?” She reached out, and Noct bowed to let her tug at the stray locks that had slipped from their tie. 

“You don’t like it?” Noct smiled up at her. 

“Oh, please. You look _ancient._ ”

Gladio managed to compose himself with what looked to be a great force of will. “No,” he said. “We aren’t doing this. You’re telling me you remember _her,_ but not me?”

Noct shrugged, trapped in place by Iris’ hands in his hair. “Maybe I needed to meet the _nice_ Amicitia to get my memory going.”

“Ouch,” Iris said, and pulled a face at Gladio.

Gladio stared at him as though he’d grown a second head, but Noct didn’t care. It was like his mind was unfolding, pulling back years of hazy uncertainties to reveal a glimpse of something familiar. After weeks of feeling lost, he finally had something to hold onto. Even if it was the memory of a girl he’d only met once or twice in his life.

“Guess I made an impression,” Iris said, tugging at his hair once more before letting go. “I knew Dad was wrong about you.”

“Ha, thanks.”

Gladio groaned, and Noct, unthinking, bumped his shoulder with a fist. “Come on,” he said. “Train with me tomorrow, and maybe I’ll remember _you_ this time.”

“I can’t believe I’m competing with my sister,” Gladio grumbled, and Noct laughed, helpless and groundless and _happy._

\---

With the change in Noct’s schedule to accommodate daily attempts not to get his ass handed to him in the training grounds, a subtle shift appeared in the atmosphere of the palace. Servants started looking him in the eye, and stopped darting around him like fish avoiding the path of an oncoming shark. He learned the names of the maids who cleaned his rooms, and spoke occasionally to the messenger-girls who raced like wind-spirits through the halls to deliver reports. Once, the young manservant who washed the windows every few days lingered after, and when Noct recognized his accent as belonging to the region where he’d been raised with Ardyn, they spent the next week trading their knowledge of local, colorful swears. 

One evening, after a maid had stopped on her way out to teasingly remind Noct _not to pull the sheets to the floor this time, your highness,_ and had giggled at Noct’s deep bow in response, Regis stretched his legs out on the settee and smiled.

“That was pleasant,” he said. 

“You think?” Noct settled on the floor next to him, his back to the side of the chair. Regis hummed.

“You walk less like you’re on the heels of a stormcloud, of late, and more like the young man you are.”

Noct quieted at that. “At least _one_ of us has figured out what I am,” he said, softly. When Regis laughed, he twisted round to look at him in alarm.

“I’m sorry, son,” Regis said, “but I heard those _exact_ words from your mother, once.” He paused. “Do you remember my telling you of her?”

“All I know is what I heard in Niflheim,” said Noct. He tried to keep the interest out of his voice, unsure if Regis wanted to continue. “They said she wasn’t noble?”

“Behold, one fact the Empire has managed not to corrupt.” His father’s voice was very dry. “She was a tailor—She made the suit for my coronation. I admit, I wasn’t the best at standing still in those days, and she kept _stabbing_ me with that blasted needle every time I so much as _breathed._ ” He looked down at Noct. “Never let anyone tell you that true love isn’t painful, son.”

Noct snorted.

“She hated it, too,” Regis said. He leaned over to run a hand down his bad leg, the way he always did when he was considering a troubling thought. “The formality of it all. Marrying me was easy, she said. Being a Queen was another matter. She was always more at home with the servants than she was in the audience hall. I’d catch her hemming her own gowns at night, or serving herself at breakfast—The footmen didn’t know how to react. When she was carrying you, she repurposed so many of her formal gowns and suits into baby clothes that I worried she would appear at the next ball in nothing more than her underclothes.”

“I should try that,” Noct said. Regis shuddered.

“Perish the thought, please.” He let out a sigh. “Aulea would have liked you. You have much of her spirit.”

“By accident, maybe.”

“She would have called it fate,” said Regis. He groaned as he rose to his feet, and turned to look down on Noct. “I believe it is time for me to bid you goodnight, son.”

“Night, Dad.” 

The words still felt strange on Noct’s tongue, but like all things, lately, he found it was getting easier. 

\---

The next morning, Noct was heading back from the breakfast room with Ignis, Gladio, and a trailing retinue of bored Crownsguard soldiers, when he heard shouting in the direction of the Royal Gallery. He looked at Gladio, who had fallen into that dangerous, watchful silence, and let the guards behind him stream past them, heading towards the noise. When Noct made to follow, one of them stopped him with a hand on his shoulder.

"Stay back, your highness," she said. Noct shifted back a moment, then caught Ignis' eye. The man had his brows raised, looking from the guard to Noct, and Noct let out a gusty sigh.

He brushed past the guard wordlessly, and strode towards the disturbance. Behind him, he could hear Gladio whisper, "You're becoming a bad influence, Iggy."

"For once in his life," Noct countered, smiling a little at the outraged gasp he'd expected to hear from the advisor in training. They rounded the corner to the gallery doors, ducked under the ropes blocking the public from the rest of the palace, and took in the scene. 

Four Crownsguard soldiers were dragging a young man to the exit, looking weary and harassed. The man was struggling, though not by much, and kept trying to lunge out of their hold to scramble for something on one of the benches.

"Dude," he said, half laughing. "Just let me get my camera and I'll _go._ "

"That's the third time we've caught you trying to sneak into the Citadel," one of the guards said. "We're going to have to turn you over to the city police."

"Okay, fine, whatever. My _camera._ "

Noct stepped around one of the curious onlookers to get a better view, and covered his mouth to hold back a bark of laughter. The guards looked up at him, and the young man in their grip followed their gaze. The man's jaw went slack for a moment, then he broke into a toothy grin. 

"Hey!" he called, trying to wave through the arm of one of the guards. "Izunia!"

Every guard in the room tensed. 

"Prompto," Noct said, grinning back. "Fancy meeting _you_ here."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Noct spends a LOT of time smiling in the last two chapters.  
> Sometimes you remember the strangest, most random things. I once walked past a honeysuckle bush and remembered some kid searching for turtles in a ditch, and yet I STILL can't remember ever meeting people I apparently knew til the age of 8. Memory is weird. So I thought it'd be nice to let Noct recall _something._
> 
> For those of y'all who didn't read the previous story--Noct introduced himself to Prompto as Izunia when they first met. Awk-ward.


	5. Never Quite Free

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> People from Noct's past come back to haunt him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I should note that the General's actions in the flashback have more meaning given the context of the Kingsglaive film.

“Sorry about this, Prompto.”

Noct sat on the floor in front of one of the Crownsguard’s interrogation rooms, arms on his knees, facing the blonde teenager he’d met on his first day in the city. Prompto seemed largely unaffected by the voices steadily rising behind the door at his back, and scooted forward so that his feet were tangled up with Noct’s.

“No sweat,” he said, with a slightly nervous smile. “I mean, I did, uh, accidentally sneak the crown prince into the castle.”

“For the record,” Noct said, “I didn’t know that, yet.”

Prompto shook his head. “Dude, how do you _not_ know you’re a prince? Isn’t that, like, important?”

Noct shrugged. He was flipping through Prompto’s photos on his camera while they waited for Clarus, Cor, and whoever was in charge of asking questions debate whether Prompto, the gangly, copiously freckled nineteen-year-old who took pictures of flowers, was a dangerous element.

“I like this one,” he said, showing Prompto a picture of a street scene. The other young man leaned forward and raised a hand, wobbling it in the air.

“Lighting was ok,” he said. 

“So you’re a photographer?”

Prompto snorted. “I wish! I’m actually an engineering student. I have this pen pal, right?”

“The one you just told me about,” Noct said. “Twice.”

“Don’t be mad, bro.” Noct still couldn’t quite believe how _quickly_ Prompto had divested him of his personal space. The blonde leaned over their knees, their foreheads touching, and flipped through the photos in the camera Noct was holding. “Anyways, she lives in Tenebrae, right? Well, it’s hard for her to get anywhere, with the MTs blocking off all the roads, so I thought… here it is.” He tapped the screen. Noct peered at the photo, which was of Prompto holding up a red, glowing ball the size of a fist. 

“It’s a prototype,” Prompto said, “But it’s _supposed_ to jam electrical signals. It only works on, uh, the electricity in my house, so far…”

“That’s amazing,” Noct said. “But MTs don’t run on electricity. Not completely. They’re partly organic.”

“R-really?” Prompto drew back. “I’ll… have to work on that.”

Noct resumed flipping through photos. “You must like this girl, to do all this for her.”

“Dude, it’s not like that.”

“ _Sure._ ” Noct jumped when Prompto kicked his ankle. 

The voices in the back room were starting to die down. Prompto leaned back, twisting around to get a good look at the guards who watched them from the other side of the hall, and gestured in their direction. “Think they’re ready for me,” he said. “What do you think, Izunia? … Noct? Hey, buddy?”

Noct stared down at the picture on the camera screen.

“Dude.” A finger tapped on Noct’s forehead. He didn’t move.

“Hey. Prompto.” His voice sounded distant. “You ever meet this guy?”

He held out the camera, and Prompto leaned in.

“Yeah,” he said. “I mean, sort of. I gave him directions, once.”

“Why?”

“Dude, I don’t know. ‘Cause he was lost?” Prompto’s laugh sounded forced. “What, do you know him?”

Noct blinked, hard, and drew back. The man on the camera screen was grinning, the corners of his mouth turned up in a false smile, eyes scrunched against the glare of the sun. He was tilting his hat up to the viewer, like a salute, and his other hand was pointing to the entrance of the Citadel.

“When did you take this?” he asked. Prompto shrugged.

“A few days ago? He asked why I was hanging out by the palace. I, uh. I was kind of worried. You never came out, so I thought I’d, I don’t know, try and… See how you were… And then you never showed, so…”

“Thanks, Prompto.” Noct forced himself to smile. “Really.”

He deleted the photo.

The door opened, and Cor Leonis stepped out, running a hand along the back of his neck. “We’re ready for you, son,” he said.

“Right. Oh! Wait!” Prompto looked around, and spotted Ignis, who was talking quietly to Gladio a few feet away. “Hey, Specs!”

Ignis blinked. “ _Specs?_ ” Gladio’s answering grin was wolfish.

“Do you have a pen?”

Ignis wordlessly handed Prompto a ballpoint pen, and Prompto grabbed Noct’s left arm. 

“Hey!”

“Sit still.” Prompto leaned over him, and scribbled something down on the inside of Noct’s forearm. Noct looked up at Cor, standing behind Prompto with an amused expression, and back. 

“Call me when I get out, right? We can hang.”

“I don’t… have a phone…”

“Use one of theirs!” Prompto took the camera from Noct’s unresisting fingers and slapped him on the back with his free hand. “See ya, buddy.”

Noct sat there in stunned silence, long after Prompto had disappeared into the interrogation room.

“Well,” Gladio said, after a while. “I think the prince has made a friend.”

“Whether he wants to or not,” Ignis said. Noct glared at them both, and Gladio had to turn away to suppress a laugh. 

\---

Noct hadn’t thought much of MagiTech as a science until he’d met the General.

MagiTech, in Noct’s vague understanding, was what you got when you mixed the magic in a daemon’s lifeblood to the engineering of the Emperor’s research team. He wasn’t very curious about the details. Whenever his father visited Verstael, the head researcher, Noct opted to wait at the door rather than follow him inside—something about talking to Verstael made him feel like he needed to take a shower. The man was inherently _slimy._

It had been a surprise when Noct heard that the dread General Glauca, the Emperor’s terrible right hand in the battle against Lucis, was not, in fact, an enhanced MT unit.

He looked practically ordinary. Noct had spotted him as he spoke to Ardyn in the hall outside of the fortress’ communications room, his dark hair cropped short, his square jaw set in a frown. There wasn’t a hint of his magically enhanced armor anywhere, and he seemed strangely diminished next to Noct’s father.

The General straightened when he saw Noct approach, and there was a slight hiss of magic in the air as something wavered at his shoulders. The armor, kept in stasis until he could call it into being. Noct itched to see what it would look like in action, and from Ardyn's wry expression, he knew his father could tell.

“Ah,” Ardyn said. “General, have you met Noctis?”

Noct bowed, struggling to keep his expression steady. He’d admired the General for _years,_ and his father knew it. The past three times he’d visited the fortress, Ardyn had refused to let Noct near him. The last time, Noct had made such a fuss over it that he’d been confined to his room for two weeks, like a _child._ To have him here, standing before him at last, was unsettling and thrilling all at once. And Ardyn never addressed Noct to others by name—By the look in his eyes, he was taking great amusement in Noct’s starstruck behavior. The General nodded, briefly, and looked sharply at Noct's father.

“Noctis?” He asked. “The son of—“

“The chancellor, yes,” Ardyn said, bowing graciously. Noct closed his eyes briefly. His father’s flair for the dramatic could be a little more than trying, sometimes. The General seemed to agree, choosing instead to turn his steely gaze to Noct. 

“We were considering turning Noctis’ attentions to Insomnia soon,” Ardyn said. “Seeing as you have, ah, intimate knowledge of their military, I know Noct would be thrilled with a demonstration. A friendly bout, between allies?”

“Father, I don’t need to—” Noct began, but Ardyn quieted him with a look. “I mean, I’d be honored, General.” 

“Noctis,” the General said, seeming to savor the word. “Very well.” He inhaled, slowly, and his MagiTech armor melted into view, snaking over his body like the intertwined branches of a dying tree. Noct’s breath caught in his throat.

“Wait,” he said, trying to keep the nervous shiver from reaching his voice. “Here? We’re doing this _here?_ ”

His father clicked his tongue. “General, I must protest—“

The General swung his sword free from its sheath, and descended upon Noctis without a word.

Noct didn’t stand a chance. He warped to reach his blade as he threw it, not trusting himself to escape by the time it landed—but no, no, the General was somehow _there,_ knocking the knife out of the air so that Noct landed on his side, directly under Glauca’s feet. He summoned a greataxe as the General’s sword bore down, but it wasn’t enough, and he called upon half of his armiger in a panic just to keep the blade from reaching his neck. The sword drove into his flesh anyways, deep into muscle and sinew, and Noct kicked out at the General’s legs even as his vision began to darken with pain and the exertion of using the armiger—

“I believe that is _enough,_ General,” called his father’s voice, from a great distance.

Noctis woke to the crackle of magic. 

He was lying on the ground of the fortress hallway, and his clothes felt tacky and damp as he struggled to rise through a haze of pain. A pale, clammy hand pressed down on his shoulder, and he flinched back as a burst of golden light obscured his vision.

“Forgive me, son,” said his father. “It’s been some time since I’ve used this _particular_ brand of magic.”

Noct felt another hand twist his head to the side, exposing his neck, and he hissed as coolness seeped down a raw, aching wound that stretched down Noct’s shoulder to the bone. He was held there for so long that he could hear the footsteps of soldiers passing in the hall, switching guards on the watch floor. The golden light that flowed from his shoulder started to fade, and the pain with it. At last, he was released, and Noct reached over to touch his neck.

Nothing. His fingers were stained with fresh blood, but his skin was whole and unscarred. Noct rose on his elbows and saw his father sitting back, head bowed in exhaustion, hat somewhat askew over his forehead. This scared him almost as badly as the fight with the General, if not more. Ardyn _never_ tired.

“Let’s not do that again, shall we?” his father asked. “Once a millennia is fine with me.”

Noct didn’t bother to interpret that. “Come on, Dad,” he said, slowly getting to his knees at Ardyn’s side. He wrapped an arm around his father’s shoulders and heaved him to his feet. 

“Good boy,” his father said, sounding more like himself. “Next time…”

“Next time, I’m not fighting him,” Noct said. “Not even for you.”

Ardyn’s laugh echoed down the hall of the fortress as father and son made the long, unsteady trek back to their rooms.

\---

Noct lay awake on the floor of his bedroom in Insomnia, running his fingers over the numbers on his left arm. If Prompto’s little disruptors could work on electronics, what would happen if they _could_ work on MagiTech? They could freeze MT soldiers in place in the battlefield, giving the Kingsglaive a brief advantage. They could wreck entire transport carriers, if someone was reckless and desperate enough to get inside of one. It probably wasn’t enough to stop enhanced armor like the General’s, but it could be a small step toward turning the tide in the war.

He frowned. He was thinking like a Lucian. It had happened so easily, so naturally, that he hadn’t even considered it. What would Ardyn say to see him now?

“Ardyn.” Noct could dimly see the guard at his door glance his way, but he ignored them, trying to wrap his mind around why he couldn’t bring himself to tell Regis about the photo. If Ardyn was in the city, the King should know. But Noct knew, selfishly, that what he really wanted was to find Ardyn himself. No one else knew him, really knew him. Regis would try to fight him outright. Ignis and Gladio would go to Clarus, Nyx to the elusive captain of the Kingsglaive. No, if anyone was going to confront him, it would have to be Noct. Alone. He couldn’t risk anyone getting hurt on _his_ behalf, and he couldn't bear the weakness of worrying about them.

He placed a hand on his neck, where Ardyn had healed his sword wound only nine months before. No one had questioned his place in Niflheim. It was a false home, but he’d belonged there, and he wasn’t expected to be anything other than what he was. Here, he wasn’t even trusted to have a _conversation_ without an ulterior motive. He would never be a prince in the eyes of the Council, and he wouldn’t be accepted by them as anything else. Even Ignis and Gladio couldn’t help but hold him up against the child they used to know—Was it any surprise that they should find him lacking? 

“Ardyn,” he said again, into the dark. The word curled round his tongue like a summons, a plea. “Ardyn.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well. This isn't going to backfire.


	6. Heavy Truths

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Noct learns more about how to make friends and influence people.

The next morning, Noct woke a little before dawn and cancelled his training session with Gladio. He spent several hours in his room, writing notes in a code he and Ardyn used to share, trying to figure out what _he_ would do in Ardyn’s place.

One: He had a potential mole in the royal family. Noctis. Noct wrote the code for _Prince_ and circled it.

Two: He could enter Insomnia at any time. _Unplanned Attack?_ was scratched out, and Noct wrote _Keep them paranoid_ and connected a line to _Ardyn._

Well, that was working.

So Ardyn wasn’t going to attack right away. Or he _would,_ because he knew that Noctis would pick up on that. And even so, what was his end goal?

Noct drew a crystal in the center of the page, and a crown. Destroy the line of Lucis. That had always been their plan. So why didn’t Ardyn just walk in and do the job himself? He’d shown everyone that he could do it.

Because that wouldn’t be _poetic,_ Noct realized. No, it would be much better, much more interesting, if he could find a way for Lucis to destroy _itself._

Clarus and Gladio couldn’t be corrupted—they would have to be removed from play somehow. That meant bringing in someone powerful, one of the Empire’s heavy hitters. But an invasion would cause too much fuss, and Ardyn liked things to be tied up neatly. Invasion plans belonged to the Emperor—subterfuge belonged to the chancellor. So who could be corrupted? The Crownsguard? The Council? The Kingsglaive?

Noct pushed back from the desk just as Gladio and Ignis entered the room.

“You’ve been in here all day,” Gladio said, striding over. “The King will worry. What are you working on?”

“Trying to figure something out,” Noct said, shifting the papers under his hands. Gladio peered at the code and huffed.

“Prince,” he said. “Keep them… I don’t recognize that word. What’s that supposed to mean?”

“How do you know—“ Noct’s mouth felt very dry. Gladio shrugged.

“It’s the old language of Lucis, before the Starscourge,” he said. “There aren’t many records from that era, but I’m kind of a history nut in my spare time.” He twisted the page around. “How’d you learn it? Did the King teach you?”

“No, Ardyn,” Noct said. He and Gladio exchanged equal looks of confusion.

“How did Ardyn…” Gladio shook his head. “Not going down that road. Iggy and I came by because we wanted you to know. The Kingsglaive came back three days ago. Your man Nyx was with them.”

Noct sat up. 

“Thought you’d like that.” Gladio stepped back. “Iggy knows the way.” He raised his brows at Noct’s unspoken question. “I can’t show my face in the barracks since the Captain kicked my ass a few months ago. I have my pride.”

“And I have sense,” Ignis said. “I know better than to challenge Drautos.”

“I have to meet that guy sometime,” Noct said. He clapped Gladio on the shoulder and followed Ignis out.

He tried to hold back his nerves as he and Ignis made their way to the Kingsglaive’s barracks and training courtyard. If he could find a way to talk to Nyx, ask him the right way if he’d seen anything strange, heard whispers of insurrection… At the least, Noct could cross the Kingsglaive off of his potential list of targets. The Crownsguard was more likely, anyways—they were the ones who stayed closest to the King, and posed the greatest threat if turned.

He was lucky. Nyx was just outside the courtyard, twisting the dials of his earpiece. When he saw Noct and Ignis, his expression shifted into something almost pained. Noct slowed, suddenly wary.

“I’ll give you space,” Ignis said, in a soft voice. Noct walked up to the Glaive and stopped, wrapped in an awkward silence.

“Prince Noctis,” Nyx said.

“You know how I feel about that,” said Noct. He tried for a smile, but Nyx wasn’t having it.

“Yeah,” he said. “About that.”

Noct rocked back a little. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. “Nyx, there’s something I need to ask you.”

“If I can go first, your highness.” Noct leaned against the wall, arms crossed, and Noct saw that his hands were clenched into tight fists. 

“Look, kid. I get it,” Nyx said, after a short, tense moment. “You’re working some things out. Hell, most of the Kingsglaive have been there. It’s not exactly a unique condition. But right now? We are at _war_ with the Empire.”

“I know that,” Noct said, confused. “It’s why I—“

“It’s a war we’re _losing._ ” Noct fell silent. “Last week? We lost four Glaives. Right now, that makes us down a sixth of our number. We’re stretched thin, the Empire always knows when we’re coming and where, and there aren’t enough of us to prevent them from setting fire to the countryside.” He took a deep breath, and ran a hand over the braid by his right ear. 

“You can’t pretend you didn’t have a hand in this.” The words sank into Noct’s stomach like lead. “Captain Drautos said it, and I believe he’s right, Noctis. You need to tell the King what you know, whatever you know. We don’t have the freedom to wait it out. Sometimes, whatever you’re going through has to take a backseat.”

Noct stared at the Glaive, hearing something that sounded too much like Ardyn in the back of his mind. _Who would befriend the man who lost them the war?_

“You’re right,” Noct said, when he could speak again. “This was wrong. I shouldn’t have come.”

“Don’t be that way, kid,” Nyx said. For the first time since they’d met, there was _pity_ in his eyes. “I know it’s hard to hear—“

“No.” Noct stepped back. “I… I’m sorry for…” He ran his hand through his hair, tugging at the roots. “Never mind. It isn’t important.” He should have known better. No one in the Kingsglaive would possibly trust him enough to share information. Even Nyx.

Nyx’s voice sounded guarded. “Is there… something going on?”

“No. Sorry to bother you.” He turned, his cheeks flushed with humiliation, and beat a fast retreat. Nyx called after him, but Noct raised a hand, grabbing the bewildered Ignis by the collar as he passed. The advisor nearly tripped in his hurry to follow.

“Noct,” he said. “Are you well?”

“I’m _fine._ ” Noct said.

“Pardon me for saying so, but you don’t _look_ fine.”

Noct raised his hands in the air. “Fuck’s sake, Ignis, what do you want? I’m great. I’m wonderful. I’m the _Prince of Lucis!_ _And_ the monster from Niflheim! All at once. One neat little package, courtesy of Ardyn Iz—“

This time, it was Ignis’ turn to grab _him_ by the collar. Noctis whipped around, adrenaline sharp in his mouth, and looked into eyes as cold as those he’d seen in battle, so long ago. He bit down the urge to summon his sword.

“Stop this,” Ignis said. His voice was tight. 

“Stop what?” Noct wrenched himself out of Ignis’ grasp. “Existing?”

“Spiraling. Letting people decide who you are,” Ignis said. 

“As if you aren’t one of them?” Noct stepped forward, but Ignis stolidly refused to move. “You’re very quick to call me _your highness,_ but you weren’t there when I—“ he gestured towards the Kingsglaive barracks, wrenched his hand back. 

“You did a monstrous thing,” Ignis said, in a low voice. “But you aren’t a monster.”

“There’s a difference?” Noct spat. Ignis shrugged. 

“Did you enjoy it?” The older man stepped into Noct’s space, making him fall back. “I know you like to fight, Noctis. But did you enjoy killing them?”

Noct thought about the times he’d stood over the bodies of dead Lucian soldiers. The way he felt like he was drifting somewhere behind his body, the way he forced himself to look at them as lifeless husks rather than people, the bile he swallowed in his throat when he closed their eyelids. The countless times he’d lost the contents of his stomach before he learned to do it right.

“No,” he said, at last.

“Then stop this.” Ignis had backed him into the wall. “You are in a position where you can _change_ things, Noctis. The rest of the world has to atone the hard way.”

“I can’t change anything if no one trusts me to do it,” Noct said. He ducked out of Ignis’ way, backing into the center of the hall. “Maybe Lucis is losing this war because they put too much hope in the man who sits on the throne. One slip-up, one mistake like me, and the whole kingdom falls apart.”

“The king doesn’t fight alone,” Ignis said. “And if you weren’t such a… a self-absorbed _fool,_ you’d know you don’t have to, either.”

Noct gave Ignis a mocking bow. “Thank you, Mr. Scientia. Your advice, as always, has been impeccable.” 

He knew it was cruel when he said it, knew that it was designed to get under Ignis’ skin. But he couldn’t stand to be around anyone right now, let alone a man who stared him down and saw right through him, into the waters in which Noct was not prepared to wade. Ignis stared at him, anger etched in his features, and when Noct turned to go, he did not hear the older man’s footsteps follow him down the hall.

 

He wasn’t alone for long. He ran into a Crownsguard soldier not two minutes in on his way to his rooms, and soon collected two more, like unwelcome burrs at his heel. He made an altogether unnecessary comment about them “taking time away from rounding up innocent civilians for questioning,” which managed to spread his own dark mood with remarkable speed. He’d nearly forgotten the entire point of the day’s exodus when he stopped short at a flash of movement out of the corner of his eye.

Noctis turned. There, at the end of the hall. The swish of a dark jacket, with a light fringe like loops of lace. He strode after it, ignoring the inquisitive protests from the guards, and turned the corner.

Ardyn Izunia rounded the curve of the hall before him, disappearing out of sight and into the depths of the Citadel.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was hard to write for some reason. Welp! Things are certainly going to pick up soon...


	7. Visions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Noct follows Ardyn deep into the Citadel...

Noct raced through the halls of the Citadel.

He was vaguely aware of the sound of shouting behind him, and the pounding of heavy boots on the stone floors. Stone gave way to soft carpet, and the steady curve of the hall twisted into a stair, but still Noct could barely catch a glimpse of Ardyn. The man was always just out of sight, disappearing round corners, the tails of his jacket flicking like the fin of an ancient fish, a flash of his hair in the dim light. Noct tried to close the distance, but even with Ardyn’s slow, steady pace, he couldn’t get close enough to touch him. At one point, he heard a distant booming sound, and the footsteps behind him faltered and grew faint, but still Noct pressed on. 

Finally, the stair bottomed out to a wide platform, where ornate doors took up most of the far wall. Ardyn was there. He raised his hand to the doors and stepped back. They began to open, and he slipped through.

“Damn,” Noct said, putting on a last burst of speed. “Damn him, damn him…”

He made it through the doors a few moments later, and skidded to a halt in a room that practically hummed with magic.

Ardyn was nowhere to be found. Instead, floating between four pillars set in the stone, was the Crystal.

It looked more like a geode than a single crystal, with a curve that revealed a multifaceted chaos of individual stones, growing thick and jagged like the teeth of a shark. Noct stepped closer, dragging his feet through the pressure of the magic in the air.

He raised a hand to test the thickness of the air, and his hands pushed through as though he were easing them into a soft mattress. 

_You approach too soon, little King._

Noct jumped at the sound. It wasn’t quite a voice. It bloomed in his mind with the sinuous hiss of a snake, cold as the stinging breath of winter in the Empire. Noct winced and ducked his head.

“I’m not a King,” he said. “You have the wrong Caelum.”

 _Right man, wrong time,_ said the voice. The Crystal. Somehow, Noct knew that this was the Crystal. He continued pressing his hand through the magical barrier, closing the distance between himself and the stone. It had been such a permanent feature in his nightmares for so long, and reaching out to it now was like prodding a loose tooth—painful, but somehow necessary. 

_Let us show you the strands of the fate of Lucis,_ the Crystal said, and Noct felt himself tipping forward, impossibly forward, into a light so bright it felt like the overpowering numbness of sleep.

 

***  
_  
It is his time, and it is not his time. The Crystal eases him through a swirl of distant possibilities and branching destinies, and through the maelstrom of visions he grasps for bright fragments, drawing them close, breathing them, living them._

_Noctis is standing on a grassy hill overlooking an unfamiliar range of mountains. The sun has set, and a young man stands on the crest of the hill, auburn hair tied up in a messy bun. His hand is extended to an Iron Giant, which warps and twists like a reflection in a pool, black threads of it streaming into the young man’s fingers. Around them, the earth glows through the dark grass with a warm, golden light. Specks of it leap like the spark of a campfire, snapping at the man’s temples, burrowing in his hair. When the daemon is gone, dissolved into his flesh, the man turns to Noctis with an exhausted smile._

_He speaks in a language Noct does not understand, and he wears Ardyn’s face._

_***_

_A woman with her hair tied back in a light blonde braid kneels on a sea-washed dais._ The Oracle, _the Crystal whispers, in its cold, inhuman voice. She is bleeding out from a wound in her belly—Noctis knows the nature of such a strike, knows she has fifteen minutes at best to live. So does she. She grips a trident at her side and calls out in a voice that makes Noct’s bones ache, and a golden light—so like the light that shone on that faraway hill—pools about her and rushes forth in a great bolt of magic. She should not be dying here. Noct can feel the Crystal speaking to the wrongness of her death, the lurch in fate that this will cause, and he reaches out to stop her as the vision draws back—_

_***_

_And closes. Noct is alone. The heat in the air would be choking if it weren’t for the fact that Noct no longer feels the need to breathe. He holds a trident in his hands, and his arms are speckled with blood._

_***_

_Ardyn kneels at the base of the throne of Lucis, Noct’s sword through his back. Noct holds him there, and the Oracle, looking older, now, places glowing hands on Ardyn’s face. Black smoke pours from his eyes, his mouth, his nose, dissipating in air gone thick with the golden light of healing magic. He jerks—Noctis leans down on the hilt of his sword, keeping him still._

_“Easy, father,” he says, and his voice sounds deeper, rougher, and hoarse with exertion. “Not long now.”_

_Ardyn laughs, a growling, echoing laugh, and the woman closes her eyes. The glow brightens, and Ardyn’s laughter thins to a keening scream, and Noct can feel the heat of tears on his cheeks as the scream goes on, and on, and on._

__Make it right, _the Crystal says._

 __Fulfill your duty, little King.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a short one! Well, now we know where Ardyn was going...


	8. Second Meetings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Noct confirms Clarus' suspicions and meets an old friend.

When Noct finally came to, he woke to a chorus of voices.

Someone was shouting. Noctis squeezed his eyes tight and tried to reach up to pinch the bridge of his nose, but his arms wouldn’t budge. He lifted his wrists. His hands could move, and his legs were free, but his arms… Noct opened his eyes, struggled to see through the fog in his brain. He was sitting in a low, dark green chair, and his forearms were bound. Panic welled in his chest, and he looked up.

“—and I am his _shield,_ ” Gladio was shouting, in a voice that was half a roar in the near-empty office. He was standing with his back to Noct, as though blocking him from the view of… Clarus? What was Gladio doing, shouting down his father?

“You are to be the shield of the _King,_ ” Clarus said, his voice raised dangerously, but not quite as loud as his son’s. “I do not see a king in this room.”

“Not yet,” Gladio shot back.

“For the record,” Noct said, in a drawl that sounded much unlike himself. “I don’t see one, either.” He couldn’t keep his head up straight, and had to tip it back to get a good look at them. The ropes on his arms chafed as he shifted. “Feels real. Don’t start whispering, please.”

Gladio and Clarus both turned to face him. Gladio stepped forward, but his father held him back with a firm grip on the shoulder.

“He doesn’t know where he is,” Gladio hissed.

“Course I know,” Noct said, only lying through his teeth _a little._ He blinked the sleep from his eyes and tried to force himself to wake up. “Does my dad? Know? About this?” He tried to lift his arms, and the bite of the rope helped shake him into alertness.

“The King knows,” Clarus said.

“Not that he’s happy about it,” Gladio countered. 

“Gladiolus.” Clarus’ voice could have tempered steel. “You will leave these rooms and stand guard until I give you the order to leave your post. Have I made myself clear?”

Gladio did not turn to his father, only gave Noct an odd, questioning look. It took Noctis a moment to realize that Gladio was looking to _him_ for permission.

“I’ll be fine,” he said. “What can your dad do, kill me?”

“Not on my watch,” Gladio said. He turned without a word to his father, and slammed the door shut as he left.

Clarus sighed.

“Stop me if I’m wrong,” Noct said, into the pregnant silence that followed, “but I feel like maybe the Crystal chamber was supposed to be off limits.”

“I’ve tried to be patient with you,” Clarus said, in a voice like ice. Noct perked up.

“You have? I had no notion.” He forced himself to lean back, and deliberately lifted one foot, then the other, to rest on the edge of the desk in front of him. Clarus kicked his feet down. “Oh, sorry. You don’t have any thumbscrews lying around, do you? Just wondering.”

“You will be _silent_ ,” Clarus said. He took a moment to compose himself. “I’m not certain what made you slip, young man. You had the King well and truly fooled ‘til now.”

Til now? The exhausted smile melted from Noct’s face for a moment, and he struggled to regain it before Clarus could notice. What reason would King Regis have to distrust him? Well, he thought, ruefully, aside from the obvious.

“Ah.” Damn, Clarus had seen. “The mask falls. Over a month with us, picking up our secrets, learning the layout of the Citadel at your leisure, and then rebels attack the gates _just_ as you so conveniently make your way to the Crystal—“

“Rebels?” Noct didn’t mean to say it, didn’t mean to say anything, but the words ripped out of him. “Was that what that noise was?”

Clarus narrowed his eyes.

Voices sounded, muffled and deep, outside the door. Noct twisted round, and Clarus snapped his fingers for attention. For a moment, Noct was so consumed with hatred that he almost felt like he’d been before, back when he and Ardyn had focused their efforts against the Crown of Lucis. Some part of him knew that Clarus was only doing what anyone would when a man from an enemy country was found at the source of his kingdom’s power. But right now, he represented everything about Insomnia that Noct had always hated. Wealthy, privileged, so focused on the protection of Lucis, so arrogant in his belief that he was _right_. Noct leaned over and spat on the floor.

“I wasn’t a part of that, whatever it was,” he said. “I don’t care if you believe me.”

“You care if the King does,” Clarus said, his expression unmoving. 

“Oh, _fuck_ you.”

“Charming.” Clarus leaned down and placed his hands over Noct’s wrists. “I know that I’m right in _this,_ at least. For all that you’re likely still in the pocket of Niflheim—“

“Maybe you didn’t _hear_ when I said _fuck_ y—“

“You still,” Clarus said, placing pressure on his hands, “have some lingering affection for Regis. I ask that you dig deep, through all the _filth_ in which Ardyn has left you to wallow, and draw upon that when you answer me. _Why_ were you in the chamber of the Crystal?”

Noct wondered if he could get away with spitting in Clarus’ face, and decided against it. “You sure know how to compliment someone,” he said.

“It’s a gift. Well?”

Noct took a deep breath. Another. “I saw Ardyn in the hall,” he said. “I ran after him. He must have been leading me there.”

“How convenient for you.”

“Oh, fuck off and let me _think,_ ” Noct hissed. _Yes, that was surely calculated to make Clarus trust me_ implicitly, Noct thought, as Clarus eased back an inch. 

Did Ardyn want Noct to have that vision? To touch the Crystal? Maybe, but that wasn’t everything. He wanted Noct to be in the room with the Crystal when the rebels attacked. He wanted Noct to run, to alert the guards. Noct was supposed to be _caught._ But why?

“He wanted your men to find me,” he said, after a minute. “He wanted me _here._ ”

“How kind of this fabrication,” Clarus said, “to deliver you to me.”

“Man, I really don’t care what you—“ Noct stopped. Clarus had turned at a polite tap at the door, and Gladio’s muffled voice. Noct craned his neck to follow his gaze, and felt the icy rush of terror flood his veins as the door opened wide.

\---

Captain Drautos entered the small office, ducking his head at the low doorway. Clarus frowned—Surely the captain could have waited until he had gleaned _some_ useful information from the so-called prince. Drautos flashed an apologetic half smile and headed towards him in slow, even strides.

Clarus made to rise, but Noctis’ hands flexed under his, and he looked into the eyes of the young man in the chair. His jaw was tense, the skin around his eyes pulled tight, and pinpricks of sweat were forming on his forehead and neck. He was breathing heavier, as well, and his gaze was fixed firmly on the captain.

“Noctis,” Clarus said, softly. The boy didn’t move. His hands were rigid claws at the arms of the chair, and Clarus could see that his muscles were straining at the ropes that bound him. Clarus shot a look at Drautos, who looked from Clarus to Noctis with a slightly disgruntled expression.

“I’m sorry, Clarus,” he said, “but the King needs you. I just left him in the throne room with Cor.”

Clarus sighed. “I’m not done here,” he said. 

“I can watch him,” said Drautos. “He won’t be going anywhere. Besides, I don’t believe we’ve been properly introduced.”

Noct let out a noise that sounded somewhere between a grunt and a laugh. Clarus lifted his hands and straightened. “If you’re sure.”

“I could use the break. Go on.” Drautos smiled, a quick tug of the lips, and Clarus resigned himself to it. Of course, it was his duty to stay at Regis’ side, and he suspected that Noctis would take longer to speak than the time the King had allowed him. He just had a sinking suspicion that this summons had more to do with the safety of the prince in Clarus’ office, and less to do with the serious threat that the prince posed. Clarus raised a hand in a salute and made his way to the door.

“Clarus.” It was Noctis. He sounded breathless, voice cracking. Clarus raised an eyebrow. 

“Don’t worry, Prince Noctis,” Drautos said, leaning against the desk in front of the boy. “I’m not about to take you to task for the soldiers you’ve killed. You’re a new man, now, aren’t you?”

“Clarus, _please._ ” Noct’s voice was well and truly broken.

Clarus shook his head. Of course the boy would be distressed, facing the captain of the Kingsglaive. Good. Perhaps it would teach him a modicum of regret. Clarus strode through the open door and closed it after him, leaving them alone in the empty office.

\---

In the dim, late afternoon light, Captain Drautos bowed his head ever so slightly to the trembling young man in the chair.

“Noctis,” he said, in a light voice.

For a moment, all that could be heard was the rough intake of Noctis’ breath, and the creak of his hands as he clenched them tight against the ropes of the chair. He nodded in a mockery of Drautos’ bow, and the air around them buzzed with the flickering charge of magic.

“General.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Everyone give Clarus Amicitia a round of applause.


	9. Betrayal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> General Glauca gives Noct an option, and Noct takes it.

Magic had always come easy to Noctis. _Controlling_ his magic was something else. 

The third time Noct had accidentally set fire to his own clothes, causing a minor incident as MT patrols went into an automatic defense formation at the sight of the smoke, Ardyn had decided that enough was enough. He set the shamefaced—and slightly singed—eleven year old on one of the cushions in Ardyn’s bedroom and ordered him to stay still. Noct obeyed, and watched with interest as his father walked around the room, pulling down the curtains, dimming the lamps, and clearing space on the floor. Finally, his father sat directly in front of him, and asked Noct to hold his hands out palms up.

“I haven’t done this in a long time,” Ardyn said, “So not a word if I make a mistake.”

“How long?” Noct asked.

“Oh, years. Hundreds and hundreds of years.”

Noct giggled. Ardyn raised one eyebrow, looking superior and disappointed, which only made him laugh more. Noct took a breath and tried to keep from grinning.

“Magic works best when you are at peace,” his father said. He lifted his right hand, palm up, like Noct’s. “If you’re stressed or frightened, it will run away from you. And then I’ll have to buy you new clothes, or a new bed, or possibly myself a new _son._ ”

Noct snorted. “Dad, stop.”

“Control yourself,” his father said, “and you control your magic.” His hand sprouted flame—a small ball of fire about the size of a date. “Take this from me, pass it from your left to your right hand, and then hand it back. Keep it the same size, and don’t let it go out.”

Noct pressed his lips together and nodded, calling on his own magic as he gently slid his hand over his father’s. The fire leapt nearly a foot in the air, curls of it licking far too close to his father’s hair. “Oh no,” he squeaked.

Ardyn took back the flame, which quickly shrank to its original size. “Let’s try that again,” he said.

“I don’t think we should,” Noct said, staring at the flame warily. Ardyn shook his head.

“Soon,” he said, “You won’t have the freedom or time to take it slow. That’s why we’re learning this now. Again, Noctis.” He held out his hand, and Noct gingerly reached for the fire. “You’ll thank me for it, one day.”

 

\---

 

“Noctis Lucis Caelum,” said Drautos, the General of Niflheim and Captain of the Lucian Kingsglaive. “It _has_ been a while.”

Noct looked up at the General dispassionately. 

“Sooner than I’d like,” he said. He knew he was shaking. “Who knew that there’d be two Nifs in the Citadel this whole time?”

“Don’t treat me like the Shield,” said the General. “I have a message for you. From your father.”

Noct didn’t reply. He tried to remember what Nyx had told him about breathing. Steady inhale, to the count of six, and hold. Exhale, count of six, and hold.

The General raised his eyebrows at the young man before him. 

Noct breathed in. Held. Out.

“He knows what it is like for you, being trapped here.” The General idly kicked his heel against the floor, shaking off dust. “He thought he’d let you have a taste of it, but now that you know… he wants to see where your loyalties lie.”

Noctis closed his eyes.

“You know as well as I do that they can’t be trusted.” The General’s voice was reasonable, almost gentle. “Over ten years the Empire had you. You never moved from that fortress with Ardyn, did you?”

“No,” Noct said, and called fire to his palms. Flames trailed from his fingers and down his arms, lapping at the ropes that bound him to the chair. His black tunic was starting to singe, but he figured that he could spare a sleeve if that was the cost of escape, and he pulled at the already charring ropes—

The General slammed his hands onto Noctis’ forearms. Ice bloomed under his fingers, trapping Noct’s arms to the chair and raising blisters on his skin. Noct lost his control over his magic and let out a cry of pain, which was muffled by the press of the General’s freezing palm over his mouth.

“You don’t want to bring your shield into this,” he said, in a soft voice. Noct struggled to breathe through his nose. His arms _stung_ as though they’d been burned, and his whole body was rigid with the effort of localizing the pain. When he didn’t cry out again, Drautos removed his hand and leaned against the desk once more.

“All that power, and the King never found you.” Noct tried to turn away, but the General was still watching him. “He keeps you here and makes you a half-prince, a pitiable man who can’t be trusted to claim his own birthright.” The General knelt at the base of the chair so that their eyes were level. “And when you proved to be too much trouble, he let his dog chain you.”

There was a long, heavy silence.

“What’s the message?” Noct asked, still looking away. Drautos raised his brows. “What’s the _message,_ General?”

The General’s smile was all teeth. “I hope you don’t have any pressing plans this evening, your highness.”

 

\---

 

King Regis was beginning to wonder if he’d forgotten something. 

There were fewer footmen in the audience hall than there had been an hour before, when Captain Drautos had left to summon Clarus. Perhaps there was a festival in the city, or the attack on the gates had spooked the servants into retiring early. He kept an eye on the corners of the empty room as he spoke to Clarus, which was why he could be forgiven for missing the entrance of the Captain of the Kingsglaive some minutes later.

“Your Majesty,” Drautos said, smiling faintly. Regis turned to him, and saw by his look that this clearly wasn’t the first time he’d attempted to address him. 

“Captain. How is the situation at the gate?”

“Quiet, Your Majesty. If I may…” He pulled Regis aside, and the King looked back at his Shield. Clarus had a hand to his earpiece, and his brows were knit, the lines of his mouth gone hard.

“By no means,” Clarus was saying. “Theatrics are far from—Excuse me.” Clarus stepped around the King’s side, and Regis felt a hand touch his left shoulder. A signal to retreat. Regis unconsciously stepped back, a habit borne of years of fighting alongside his Shield, and let Clarus shift between him and the captain. 

“Did you leave the prince alone with my son?” Clarus asked Drautos.

Drautos nodded. “Of course. He was on guard.”

Clarus frowned. “You should have called on me first, Captain. Your Majesty, I believe it would be best if we speak to the prince together. There’s something I must discuss with you.”

“Of course,” Regis said. “Still, Clarus, as far as lies go, it would be much easier to make a more believable one than Ardyn stalking the halls of the Citadel. The guard—“

“Is tripled,” Clarus said. “I must insist we make haste, Your Majesty.”

There was an edge to his voice that worried Regis. He kept pace with his Shield as they said their farewells to the Captain, but then Clarus did something he hadn’t tried in nearly twenty years—He slowed his stride and gave Regis the signal to stay at his front.

“Clarus,” Regis said, voice low. “What is the meaning of this?”

He started as the doors to the audience chambers slammed open. Gladiolus stood there, a long line of blood dripping down the side of his face, holding the limp body of a Kingsglaive soldier in both hands. He let the body drop, and turned wide eyes to Clarus.

“It’s too late,” he said. “We’ll have to hold out here.”

Clarus pushed Regis forward and drew his sword, turning in one smooth, fluid motion. 

“The Kingsglaive have been compromised,” he said, in a voice that brooked no argument. Regis turned with him, and saw Captain Drautos standing in the center of the room, looking lost.

“Your son started early, I see,” Drautos said, turning to the sunlight pouring through the wide windows. He raised a hand to the back of his neck, and magic shimmered over his body, coalescing into the armor of a man that Regis had only seen on the battlefield, back in the days when he had the strength to fight. Drautos flexed his hand, and a sword dropped into it, heavy and deceptively sharp.

“General Glauca,” Regis said, in a voice that betrayed none of the emotion that strove for purchase in his chest. With a great effort of will, he summoned his armiger into being.

The General gripped his sword in both hands, and charged the King.

 

\---

 

It had been a long time since Clarus or the King had seen battle, and the General knew it. 

Gladio had run all of ten paces before the General struck Clarus’ blade, bearing down on the older man with all the strength of his enhanced armor, forcing Regis to lend a second set of arms to slow the sword’s descent. He had made it level to his father when the General wrenched Clarus off of his feet, striking low to send his body crashing against the far wall. Gladio kicked out, and swung himself into the air, bearing down with all his strength onto the General’s shoulder—

There was a sharp pain in Gladio’s neck, and he barely registered the hilt of a knife in the joint of his neck and shoulder before there was a burst of light, and the General was there. He had _warped onto Gladio,_ and the strength of his movement sent them both skidding across the floor. Gladio struck the doors to the throne room hard, jolting them open. He rolled out of the way of the General’s blade and wrenched the knife free.

Then the General was gone, warping back to the King. 

He couldn’t get there fast enough. He raced across the cold floor as the General thrust his sword into Gladio’s father, ran even as Clarus’ body folded, shuddering, at Regis’ feet, ran as the traitor’s blade swung sharp and shallow in the air, and Regis dropped to his knees. Blood poured from the King’s mutilated hand as the General caught his black ring in an armored fist.

There was a commotion at the doors where Gladio had entered. Nyx, a soldier of the Kingsglaive, staggered into the room, the hood of his uniform drawn over his eyes. Noct followed at his heels, and his hands and arms were streaked with angry red welts and a smear of dark blood. They took in the scene, and the General paused to look in Noct’s direction.

“Noct!” Regis shouted. He summoned his swords, holding them awkwardly in his shaking hands. “Stay _back._ ”

Noct looked away.

Nyx clasped the prince’s shoulder tight, and leaned in to whisper an order.

Noct raised a hand to the side of Nyx’s head. The Glaive looked puzzled for a moment, startled out of the heady adrenaline of battle, and then his eyes widened as Noct pivoted, blocking Nyx’s from the view of the King. He gripped his head in both hands.

The soft crack was drowned in the clash of steel as Regis blocked the General’s blade from descending upon Clarus, but everyone saw the slow collapse of Nyx’s body on the throne room floor. Gladio roared his fury from the end of the room, and Regis staggered, staring at his son in abject shock. 

“General!” Noct shouted. His voice was clear, commanding. “The ring!”

General Glauca flicked King Regis’ ring into the air. It sailed in a wide arc, and Noct caught it in his left hand. As the General swept back his sword to deliver a killing blow, Noctis slipped on the ring of the Lucii.

For the space of a breath, time seemed to slow. The General’s blade moved inexorably onward, in a straight line toward Regis’ heart. Gladio stood back, looking strangely expectant. Clarus struggled to rise on hands gone slick with blood.

Then there was a pulse of energy, filling the room with a buzzing, hissing static, and the prince of Lucis raised his hand to the General.

A wall of pure magic crystalized between Regis and the General’s sword, arching back to cover both the King and his Shield like planes of interlocking glass. The General turned to Noct, whose eyes flashed with an unsettling violet light. 

“On your feet, soldier,” Noctis said, lips twisting in a lopsided smile. 

Behind him, Nyx rose shakily, grimacing at the straight-backed prince. “That _hurt,_ ” he complained. 

“Had to make it look convincing.” Noct took a step forward, and the ghostly blades of his armiger whirled around him. “You’ll live.”

He snatched a blade from the air and threw it to the ground at the General’s feet, flinging himself into a warp in a rush of steel and blinding magic.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Blahhhhh this was the most boring fight scene ever, I'm so sorryyyy  
> blahhhhhhhhhh
> 
> What's going on? Why is Noct doing this? Why did Noct put on the ring?!? Where the heck is Ignis? All will be explained, I promise.


	10. Protector

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Noct stands in judgment.

Noctis stood in the audience chamber of the King, holding the Ring of the Lucii in his hand. General Glauca’s blade drew back to strike one last blow against Regis, who was too far gone for Noct to reach in time. There was only one course for Noctis to take. 

_Make it right,_ the Crystal had said.

Noct closed his eyes and slipped on the ring.

He had the same impression of falling that he’d felt when he’d approached the Crystal, only in reverse. He felt as though he were being held up by tight strings of power, threads fine as a web, locking him in place. Around him, time had gone still, the chamber-turned-battleground fading into a blue distance that flickered with light like that of the floor of a shallow river. Above him, impossibly tall figures in bright armor tilted their inhumanly angular heads his way.

_Scion of the Scourge,_ one of them said.

_King of Light,_ said another.

_Child of Lucis,_ said a third. _Why do you seek the power of the ancient kings?_

“I’m not seeking anything,” Noct said, honestly. “I… I just need to _borrow—_ ”

_His heart bears a shadow of his false father._ Noct tried to place this voice, but it was lost in a stream of whispers and echoes. _Royal blood is not enough._

Searing pain raced up his right arm, and Noct locked his legs together, bending at the waist as the skin of his hand began to crack with heat. This wasn’t the same as the flame of his own magic—it felt like it came from _inside_ his skin, fire sparking in his _veins._

“What _is_ enough?” Noct asked. He could barely grit the words out. “What do you need from me?”

_To bear the Ring of the Lucii, you must take on the mantle of protector of the kingdom,_ said one of the faceless Kings. _Are you truly willing, scion of the Scourge?_

Noct wrapped his arm around his waist and looked out at the scene around him, frozen in the wake of the rings power. The kingdom of Lucis. Noct had always considered it as a distant thing, a mess of political movements and distant cities meshed into one amorphous whole. It was easy to idealize or demonize a kingdom. Kingdoms were too vast to protect. Anyone who tried would lose themselves in the attempt.

He turned his gaze to the visor of General Glouca. When did the protection of the Lucian kings abandon him? Hadn’t he been deserving of their aid, once?

Hadn’t Ardyn?

Noct thought of the refugees in the slums of Insomnia, opening their arms to a strange, withdrawn teenager who wandered into their midst one night. He thought of Nyx, his fierce loyalty second only to the compassion that drove him. Ignis, desperate to help, standing flushed and furious outside of the barracks in the Citadel. Gladio, running a razor down Noct’s cheek. Prompto, who treated him as an old friend with no questions asked. Iris. The servants who laughed in the mornings and shared sarcastic remarks when they thought no one was looking. 

He remembered the taste of the salt air in Caem, and the way pale flowers bloomed on the hills at dawn. He thought of the fear in the eyes of a Glaive in Leide as he bled out from a sloppy wound in his side, the warmth of his skin as Noct closed in for a mercy blow. Regis, looking to him even now with hope in his eyes, certain that Noct could not have betrayed him at the last. And Clarus, poor, competent Clarus, who only wanted the best for his monarch and friend. 

Noct didn’t know much about kingdoms, but he knew what was worth protecting.

_It is enough,_ said one of the figures. The others lent their voices to the proclamation, their words echoing in the unreachable distance. Slowly, the fire in his veins drained away, leaving Noct shaking and strangely cold.

“It's enough,” Noct agreed.

_There will be pain,_ one of the kings said, as the great distance began to fade. Noct shrugged.

“I’m used to that,” he told them. 

The ancient kings dissolved into formless mist, and time aligned itself once more.

 

\---

 

Back in the world, Noct hooked the blade of his sword into Drautos’ foot as he rolled out of his warp, breaking through a gap in the armor with a sickening crack. Drautos made to swing down his blade, but Noct lifted the hand that bore the ring and shouted, “Eyes!”

Nyx and Gladio turned aside as a brilliant light burst from the ring. The General stepped back, momentarily blinded, and Noct dragged his sword through the armor as he retreated. 

“Noct!” Gladio cried, from much closer by. “Ignis!” 

Noct used a blast of magic to warp out of the General’s range of attack, and landed on his side next to Gladio. Above him, he saw Nyx hanging to his blade from the rafters, and grinned. 

 

\---

 

_An hour earlier, Noct sat in the empty office after Drautos left, waiting for the sound of the General’s boots fading in the corridor while the flames of his magic melted the ice from his arms. When he could finally feel_ something _below the shoulders, he leapt to his feet and flung the door open, coming face to face with both Gladio and Ignis in the hall._

_“Do you two ever separate?” he asked. Gladio and Ignis looked down at him in horror. He followed their gaze, and saw that flames still swam over his skin. He suppressed the magic and grabbed Gladio with shaking hands._

_“I know you don’t trust me,” he started, “and that's fine. But if we don’t move, Drautos will—“_

_“I trust you.”_

_Noct stopped._

_“Don’t make me repeat it,” Gladio said. “I’ve been with you almost every second of the day. Give me a little credit.”_

_“What did you say about Drautos?” Ignis asked. “Did he do that to you?” He gestured to Noct’s arms, which were red and blistering with the effects of the ice._

_Noct looked from Ignis to Gladio, uncertain how to explain._

_Ten minutes later, the three of them were racing down the hall._

_“Ignis,” Noct said, after a minute. “Can you get the servants out?” Ignis gave him an inquisitive look. “No, I mean it. Can you get them away from the palace? Actually…” He skidded to a stop, and rolled up the sleeve of his arm. “Call Prompto.”_

_Ignis stared at him blankly._

_“Call Prompto!” Noct pushed his arm out to Ignis, showing him the numbers Prompto had scribbled there the day before. “Tell him to give you his MagiTech disruptor. It’s a risk, but it might give us an advantage.”_

_Ignis looked from Gladio to Noct, still a bit bewildered, and pulled out his phone._

_“And you need to get to Dad,” Noct said, turning to Gladio. “I’m going to find Nyx. And… and call your father.” He rolled his sleeve back down as Ignis drew away, speaking quickly into the phone. “He’ll listen to you.”_

_Gladio didn’t argue. He pulled out an earpiece from his pockets and affixed it on his left side. “I’ll see you soon.”_

_“Be safe, both of you,” Noct said. He slapped Ignis on the shoulder as he turned towards the barracks, and prayed he’d make it to Nyx in time._

 

\---

 

“About damn time!” Noct cried, letting Gladio lift him by the arm. He was swung around, and pressed his hands on Gladio’s back as the General bore down upon his Shield. 

“Ignis!” Noct shouted. “I hope you got a hold of Prompto!” He heard Gladio grunt as he pushed down on the larger man’s shoulders, using the momentum to warp directly over the General’s head. He felt the flat of Drautos’ blade touch the soles of his shoes, and flipped out of the way as Gladio moved in to take advantage of the opening. 

“I’ve got you, buddy!” cried a high, slightly trembling voice. Noct turned in horror to see _Prompto_ at the doorway, lobbing a bright red ball in their direction. 

“Ignis, you _brought _him?” Noct cried. Ignis, ducking behind the General’s blind spot, declined comment.__

__The ball rolled to a stop just at the General’s feet, and burst in a crackle of red light. Gladio shouted and stumbled back, scrambling to remove his suddenly screeching earpiece. Drautos reeled, and his armor started to melt away, revealing his true form up to the shoulders._ _

__Ignis rammed the blade of a knife into Drautos’ right shoulder, forcing him to turn towards him. Noct made the ring flash twice—a signal—and there was a flurry of blue magic as Nyx warped down from the rafters. His feet hooked in the slippery, melting MagiTech armor as he grabbed his former captain by the head and cleanly, quietly, snapped his neck._ _

__For a moment, there was only the sound of Nyx falling back, and the heavy thud of the General’s body hitting the floor._ _

__“Fuck,” Gladio said, after a second._ _

__“You said it,” Noct agreed._ _

__“Is this… a normal day for you guys?” Prompto asked, still from a safe distance. Noct turned to tell him off for coming in person, when there was the faintest shift in the air. Noct’s vision took on a bluish tinge, and he looked around to see that, for the second time in one evening, time had slowed to a crawl. He searched for the Kings, wondering if they were there to demand their ring be returned to its rightful owner, but no glowing figures appeared in the distance._ _

__Noct became aware of the sound of hearty, enthusiastic applause._ _

__“Well _done,_ my boy.” Ardyn’s voice echoed from beyond the throne room’s double doors. “I didn’t think you had it _in_ you.”_ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> raise your hand if you have been personally victimized by the old Kings of Lucis


	11. Scion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Noct engages in a father/son heart-to-heart.

Noct walked alone into the empty throne room. 

His breath came short in the stillness of the frozen air. As he passed through the golden glow of Insomnia’s sunset, he could see the shape his passage made through the bright motes of dust that hung in the light. It brought to mind that distant hill in the Crystals vision, where a young man not much older than Noct seemed to draw that light through the very earth itself—He turned his gaze to the throne, and saw that young man’s face reflected in the pallid scowl of the man he had called his father.

“Hello, Ardyn,” Noct said, in a quiet voice. Ardyn smiled indulgently and leaned back on King Regis’ throne.

“I admit,” Ardyn said, “I thought the old Kings would think better than to accept an Izunia into their ranks. How _are_ they getting on, Noct?”

Noct lifted a foot to the first step leading up to the throne, and shuddered. What would have happened if the Kings had found him unworthy? He recalled the heat of his skin as the Kings judged the state of his character, the racking pain through which he was forced to consider their terms. 

“You expected me to fail,” he said. He took the step.

“Consider it professional curiosity,” said Ardyn. “I know you, my boy. You would have dragged your feet for years, avoiding the destiny the gods so kindly gave you.”

“You always said destiny can be overwritten.”

“Sometimes.” 

“Well, the Kings changed their mind about me,” Noct said. He took another step. “ _Someone_ must have raised me well.”

As he climbed the stair, Noct could feel the tug of the ring in his mind. It had been faint while he was fighting the General, a dull roar in the back of his head, but the silence of the throne room brought all of the ring’s dizzying strength into account. He could feel it _pulling_ at him in a steady stream, making it hard for him to think clearly. Why was it siphoning so _much?_ Noct turned his head to the window, and saw the steady gleam of Insomnia’s magical barrier through the red and gold haze of the sunset. 

Was this how Regis felt all the time?

He looked to Ardyn. The glare of the crystal in his ring cast the man into a harsh, unforgiving light, and Noct could see that he was drawing back from it. Something seemed to writhe under Ardyn’s skin, a shadow, many shadows, twisting and curling like so many fish under the surface of a smooth lake.

Like the king, or kings, who had hurt Ardyn so long ago, Noct was bringing the pain of the Crystal’s magic to Ardyn.

“Did you love me?” he asked, watching the shadows shift and pool under Ardyn’s eyes. The man who raised him bared teeth stained with black ichor.

“What a question.”

Noct thought of the golden light on the hill, the light of the Oracle, the glow that poured from Ardyn’s hands only months before. It felt like a lifetime, now. 

“It was possible, once.” Noct shrugged. “It can happen again.”

“Oh, Noct,” Ardyn said. “I thought I’d trained that hopeless sentimentality out of you.”

“I guess you failed,” Noct said, and Ardyn’s eyes narrowed. The light of the ring was glowing brighter now, and Ardyn was clearly struggling to maintain his easy slouch in the throne. Noct reached the top step, and looked down on the husk of a man below him.

 _Make it right,_ the Crystal had said.

There was always more than one way. 

“You aren’t done with me yet,” he said, placing a hand on the back of the throne. “I know. And I’m not done with you. I’ll find you when I’ve ascended, father, and I’ll put you to rest.”

Ardyn laughed, and slowly unfolded from the throne. He turned to Noct and gave him a low bow.

“Oh,” he said. “I _do_ like _you._ ”

Then he was gone, and the blue haze to Noct’s vision snapped out like a light. He was standing alone at the foot of the throne, the sun was setting over Insomnia, and soft voices called from the audience chamber below.

He pressed the fingers of his left hand over the ring of the Lucii, and hurriedly descended the steps.

 

When Noct entered the audience chamber, he steadied himself as all eyes turned to face him.

“Noct,” Ignis said, rising from where he knelt at Clarus’ side. “You’d disappeared. We thought—“

“It doesn’t matter,” Noct said. He closed the distance between them, and dropped to his knees next to the King’s Shield. Gladio sat next to him, holding his father’s hand, while Nyx helped the King retie the bindings around his fingers. Prompto sat awkwardly next to Ignis, looking something up on his phone.

“Dad,” Noct said, turning to Regis. “Can the ring heal?”

Regis shook his head. “That magic was lost to us a millennia ago.”

 _It wasn’t lost to Ardyn,_ Noct thought. He looked down at Clarus, who seemed far too pale. “How’re you holding up?”

“Please,” Clarus said, in a faint voice. “The thought of you trying to be _nice_ is terrifying enough.”

“Clearly, you’ll live,” Regis told his Shield, in a dry tone. “Maybe one day you might even get along.”

“Don’t hold your breath,” Gladio whispered. Noct cast him a glare, and caught Regis doing the same. He remembered himself, then, and turned to face his father. He held the ring in his fingers and made to slide it off.

He stopped.

Noctis closed his eyes, focused on the pulse of magic at the heart of the ring. The pain that came from the drain on Noct’s magic and strength was an incessant hum in his nerves, but it wasn’t so bad that he couldn’t push it to the back of his mind if needed. How well would he hold up after twenty years of this, as Regis had done? How many more years of it could Regis take himself?

He opened his eyes, and Regis was gazing at him steadily, his face unreadable.

“I can bear it for you,” Noct said, through the roiling mess of fear in his heart. “You don’t have to take it back.”

“Let me carry it a little while longer,” Regis said. He placed his good hand over Noct’s, and pulled away, drawing the ring with him. The tug of the ring’s magic faded, and Noct let himself fall back on his heels.

 _Make it right._ Noct looked over at the body of the General, the streaks of blood on the stone floor, the exhausted faces of his companions. He wasn’t sure which path, if any, of the ones that the Crystal had shown him had been the right one. But at least he had a good idea where to start.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, seems anticlimactic, but Noct isn't ready to stab Ardyn in the back yet, folks. One day! He needs to work up to it.
> 
> Next up is the epilogue! Ooooh buddy!


	12. Epilogue: Departures

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eight months later, some things have changed, and some things come full circle.

_Insomnia, Eight Months Later:_

“Honestly,” King Regis said, with a hint of barely restrained outrage, “This is hardly necessary.”

“It’s a precaution, Dad,” said his son. Noctis Lucis Caelum sat back on an examination table at the physician’s, flexing his knees against the cloth brace that the doctor had fitted to him. He twisted his arm back and forth, testing the give of the binding there, and a flash of white sparkled on the third finger of his right hand before fading away again.

“Yes,” Regis said, “but it was nearly ten years before I began to feel any effects—“

“You said it yourself,” Noct said. “It gets worse the further away you are from the barrier. What if the car breaks down on the way to Tenebrae? What if I’m lost in the desert for years? We have to be prepared for anything.”

“Frankly, Your Majesty,” the doctor said, from the corner where he was examining the nurse’s notes. “Hypothetical deserts aside, his highness’ treatment of his own body has been atrocious. Far be it from me to warn you against picking up a sword again,” he said, looking at the prince pointedly.

“Warning noted,” Noct interrupted. The doctor sighed.

“Injuries _add up, _highness. There are several past breaks that healed wrong. If you aren’t careful, you’ll need to wear a brace full-time.”__

“Got it.” 

The King looked to Ignis, who was standing at the door. The man nodded. “I’ll remind him, Your Majesty.” 

Noct rolled his eyes, but kept the wrist guard on. 

It had been three months since Noct began wearing the ring of the Lucii, but only a select few knew of this. It wasn’t an unusual practice—many kings and queens had passed the ring on to their heirs before the ability to maintain the barrier and supply the Glaives with necessary power disappeared entirely. The precedent was to mask the presence of the ring until such a time as the heir was crowned. The balance was tricky to maintain, but Noct had pointed out, quite reasonably, that no one would believe that Noct was ready for such a burden. 

The worst came at night. Noct suddenly understood too well why Regis seemed to have no problem with their late-evening conversations. The ring built up all its force, all the aches and pulls and the unsettling feeling that someone was whispering just out of earshot, and released it just as Noct let his guard down for bed. It became harder and harder to wake up on time, and Gladio nearly had to drag the prince to his early morning sparring practice. 

After the confrontation with Drautos, Noct found that more doors in the Citadel were slowly opening to him. He sat in on Council meetings once or twice a week, and tried not to _completely_ ignore Ignis’ briefings. He had to assist in swearing in new Glaives, and found himself being insinuated into the Kingsglaives’ good graces little by little. He suspected that getting his ass regularly kicked by Nyx at the training grounds had something to do with it. 

Once, _Clarus_ had even _smiled_ at him. Noct immediately ruined this by grinning and making a sign against evil, but he suspected that deep down, Clarus had appreciated the sentiment. 

Now, Noctis swept through his room, pressing his phone to his ear with a shoulder while he dug through discarded clothes and abandoned dossiers. 

“Please tell me you aren’t bringing your dog,” he said, pushing aside a pile of black overshirts. The man on the other end of the line let out a gasp of horror. 

“She isn’t _my_ dog,” Prompto said. “Her name is Pryna, and she’s here on _loan_.” 

“What are we gonna do, Prom? We’re taking my dad’s car, I don’t know if it’s—“ 

“Sure,” said Prompto. “We can leave Pryna behind. Then _you_ get to tell Luna—you know, the _Oracle_ —why we went _all the way to Tenebrae_ and left her loyal dog in Insomnia.” 

Noct sighed. He could already tell that this was one argument he wasn’t going to win. 

“Seriously, dude,” Prompto’s voice took on a lower tone. “How do you feel about this? You only just got back, and you know the Empire’ll be right on your tail when you get out.” 

“The Empire’s been quiet,” Noct said. He found what he was looking for—a large, weatherworn box—and dragged it out from under the bed. “I know better than anyone what _that_ means. We’ll need the Oracle’s help if we’re gonna… well. Deal with Ardyn.” 

There was a silence on the other end of the line as Prompto tried to find something comforting to say. 

“Hey,” Noct said, at last. “Good thing we know someone with friends in high places.” 

“Look, I had no idea she was the Oracle when we started writing.” 

“Just like you didn’t know _I_ was the prince. Next thing, you’ll tell me you’re related to the Emperor.” 

“Dream on, buddy. I’m common as they come.” 

__Noct laughed. “That’s what I like about you, Prompto. See you at the throne room.”_ _

__“Dude, I’ve been here for an hour!”_ _

__Noct stopped and grabbed his phone, staring at the timestamp. “Shit! Prompto, I have to go!”_ _

__“Yeah, we can’t just leave without you, bro.”_ _

__Noct hung up and shoved the phone in his pocket, and wrenched open the top of the box._ _

__He found what he was searching for tucked in the corner, shoved under a collection of books from Gladio that Noct had yet to read. He pulled it out and shook out the heavy folds of a black jacket with wide cuffs and a light grey design, like oversized lace, at the hem. The jacket he’d worn on his first day to Insomnia, when he called himself by a name other than Caelum. He slipped it on over his shoulders, and felt it settle onto him like a second skin. He sat there a moment, eyes closed, drawing his mind back to the set of rooms he’d shared with Ardyn. The desk in the corner, the mishmash of expensive rugs, cushions, and curtains in Ardyn’s bedroom, the sparse décor of his own. The sound of patrols clanking down the corridors at night, softer still than the ever present roar of Insomnia’s faraway traffic._ _

__He jumped at a knock on the door. He opened it to find Nyx, wearing his official uniform as captain of the Kingsglaive, looking at Noct with an altogether too smug expression._ _

__“If you want to embarrass me in front of your soldiers, I’m afraid you’re out of luck,” Noct said. “I was supposed to be on the road thirty minutes ago.”_ _

__“Oh, I know,” Nyx said. “I saw your retinue just now. Your advisor looks like he’s about to breathe fire.” He stepped back. “Come on, kid. I’ll walk you halfway—I need to see how the recruits are holding up.”_ _

Noct followed, falling in step with the older man. “How _are_ the recruits?” he asked. 

__“They’ll survive.” Nyx looked at the prince sidelong. “They warp better than you do, at least.”_ _

“You know, I _am_ the prince,” Noct reminded him. “I don’t have to put up with this.” 

__“Since when?” The captain of the Kingsglaive lazily shoved the crown prince of Lucis into the wall. Noct laughed and shoved back, but Nyx barely swayed._ _

__They walked in silence for a while, passing unnoticed through council halls and public receiving rooms. Noct sighed, and twisted the ring on his right hand idly. Nyx couldn’t see it there, but he could feel it, a blaze of magic that resonated with his own._ _

__“I wish you could come with me,” Noct said._ _

Nyx spoke slowly. “I _could,_ ” he said. Noct turned to look at him. “Crowe might end up terrifying half the new recruits, but it’s probably good for them…” 

__“No.” Noct pushed his hands in his pockets. “You’re needed here.”_ _

__“Well, if anything happens, I’m with you.” Nyx stopped at the corridor leading to the Kingsglaive training grounds. “I’ve invested too much time into your well-being to see you get yourself killed now.”_ _

__“Dying’s not part of the plan,” Noct said. He ducked away from Nyx’s attempt to cuff the back of his head and waved him off._ _

__He jogged the rest of the way to the throne room, but he could tell that he was far too late already. Gladio, Ignis, and Prompto were all there, waiting at the doors in their new Crownsguard fatigues, looking bored and aggravated by turns. Ignis made a disapproving noise in the back of his throat at the sight of Noct’s jacket, and Noct ran his hand over the spikes of the advisor’s carefully gelled hair._ _

__“Still don’t see why we have to do this,” Noct said. “He’s seeing us off at the car, isn’t he?”_ _

“Your highness, there _is_ a protocol that must be observed.” 

“It’s _Noct,_ Ignis. Get it together.” The sigh that escaped Ignis’ lips was long-suffering and deep. 

__“You only have yourself to blame,” said Gladio, as Noct led them through the wide doors and into the throne room._ _

__

__A few minutes later, Regis and Noctis lingered by the steps leading down to the Regalia as Gladio, Ignis, and Prompto stood to varying degrees of attention a few feet away. In the car, Prompto’s on-loan dog flapped her enormous pointed ears and dragged her paws on the upholstery, making Prompto wince and wave his hands. Pryna barked, and Gladio and Ignis exchanged dark looks. Regis placed his hand on his son’s shoulder, and Noct leaned in, head bowed, trying to ignore the squeaks and whines of the dog scuffing up the paint of his father's vintage car._ _

__“If you’re sure,” Noct said, for the fifth time._ _

__“I’m certain,” said the King. “I’ve left the city before. The barrier will hold. Have a little faith, son.”_ _

__Noct looked out over the city, towards the bright pillar of light that fed the protective barrier. “Hopefully, by the time we come back, you won’t need that anymore.”_ _

__From their respectful distance, Ignis, Gladio, and Prompto watched as the King drew Noctis into a light embrace. He whispered something into the prince’s ear, and Noct’s shoulders straightened slightly as he drew away, hands lingering on his father’s shoulders. When he turned to face them, the others pretended that they didn’t see the gleam of tears in his eyes, or the way his smile seemed to shake when he addressed them._ _

__“Come on, guys,” Noctis said, climbing into the backseat of his father’s car. “Let’s go find ourselves an Oracle.”_ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PUPPER.
> 
> Also, ok, apparently this AU just keeps lending itself to extensions of the story. IDK at this point I'm going to like, rewrite the whole game.
> 
> Thank you to EVERYONE for all of your support, comments, kudos, and so on! It is just so overwhelming to come back to my email and see all these notes! I haven't written anything in ages, and your encouragement is really helping me push myself, and it's so nice to be in a fandom full of so many supportive and all around awesome people.


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